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UNDER 

WESTERN EYES 

A NOVEL 


BY 

JOSEPH qONRAD 

AUTHOR OF 

“THE SECRET AGENT” 

“ NOSTROMO.” ETC. 



HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS 

NEW YORK AND LONDON 



COPYRIGHT. 1910. 1911. BY HARPER A BROTHERS 


PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OP AMERICA 

PUBLISHED OCTOBER, 1911 


i<.eplacemen4 


\ 



PART FIRST 



UNDER WESTERN EYES 


T O begin with, I wish to disclaim the possession of 
those high gifts of imagination and expression 
which would have enabled my pen to create for the 
reader the personality of the man who called himself, 
after the Russian custom, Cyril, son of Isidor — Kirylo 
Sidorovitch — Razumov. 

If I have ever had these gifts in any sort of living 
form, they have been smothered out of existence a 
long time ago under a wilderness of words. Words, 
as is well known, are the great foes of reality. I have 
been for many years a teacher of languages. It is 
an occupation which at length becomes fatal to what- 
ever share of imagination, observation, and insight an 
ordinary person may be heir to. To a teacher of lan- 
guages there comes a time when the world is but a place 
of many words and man appears a mere talking animal, 
not much more wonderful than a parrot. 

This being so, I could not have observed Mr. Razumov 
or guessed at his reality by the force of insight, much 
less have imagined him as he was. Even to invent the 
mere bald facts of his life would have been utterly be- 
yond my powers. But I think that without this declara- 
tion the readers of these pages will be able to detect in 
the story the marks of documentary evidence. And that 
is perfectly correct. It is based on a document; all I 
have brought to it is my knowledge of the Russian 
language, which is sufficient for what is attempted 

3 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


here. The document, of course, is something in the 
nature of a journal, a diary, yet not exactly that in its 
actual form. For instance, most of it was not written 
up from day to-day, though all the entries are dated. 
Some of these entries cover months of time and extend 
over dozens of pages. All the earlier part is a retrospect, 
in a narrative form, relating to an event which took 
place about a year before. 

I must mention that I have lived for many years in 
Geneva. A whole quarter of that town, on account of 
many Russians residing there, is called La Petite Russie 
(Little Russia). I had a rather extensive connection in 
Little Russia at that time. Yet I confess that I have 
no comprehension of the Russian character. The illogi- 
cality of their attitude, the arbitrariness of their conclu- 
sions, the frequency of the exceptional, should present 
no difficulty to a student of many grammars, but there 
must be something else in the way, some special human 
trait — one of those subtle differences that are beyond 
the ken of mere professors. What must remain striking 
to a teacher of languages is the Russians’ extraordinary 
love of words. They gather them up, they cherish them, 
but they don’t hoard them in their breasts; on the con- 
trary, they are always ready to pour them out by the 
hour or by the night with an enthusiasm, a sweeping 
abundance, with such an aptness of application some- 
times that, as in the case of very accomplished parrots, 
one can’t defend oneself from the suspicion that they 
really understand what they say. There is a generosity 
in their ardor of speech which removes it as far as 
possible from common loquacity; and it is ever too 
disconnected to be classed as eloquence. ... But I 
must apologize for this disgression. 

It would be idle to inquire why Mr. Razumov has left 
this record behind him. It is inconceivable that he I 
should have wished any human eye to see it. A mys- I 
terious impulse of human nature comes into play here. ; 


I 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 

Putting aside Samuel Pepys, who has forced in that way 
the door of immortality, innumerable people — criminals, 
saints, philosophers, young girls, statesmen, and simple 
imbeciles — have kept self-revealing records, from vanity, 
no doubt, but also from other more inscrutable motives. 
There must be a wonderful soothing power in mere words 
since so many men have used them for self-communion. 
Being myself a quiet individual, I take it that what all 
men are really after is some form, or perhaps only some 
formula, of peace. Certainly they are crying loud enough 
for it at the present day. What sort of peace Kirylo 
Sidorovitch Razumov expected to find in the writing up 
of his record it passeth my understanding to guess. 

The fact remains that he has written it. 

Mr. Razumov was a tall, well-proportioned young man, 
quite unusually dark for a Russian from the Central 
Provinces. His good looks would have been unques- 
tionable if it had not been for a peculiar lack of fineness 
in the features. It was as if a face modeled vigorously 
in wax (with some approach even to a classical correct- 
ness of type) had been held close to a fire till all sharpness 
of line had been lost in the softening of the material. 
But even thus he was sufficiently good-looking. His 
manner, too, was good. In discussion he was easily 
swayed by argument and authority. With his younger 
compatriots he took the attitude of an inscrutable lis- 
tener, a listener of the kind that hears you out intelli- 
gently and then — just changes the subject. 

This sort of trick, which may arise either from intel- 
lectual insufficiency or from an imperfect trust in one's 
own convictions, procured for Mr. Razumov a reputa- 
tion of profundity. Among a lot of exuberant talkers, 
in the habit of exhausting themselves daily by ardent 
discussion, a comparatively taciturn personality is 
naturally credited with reserve power. By his com- 
rades at the St. Petersburg University, Kirylo Sidoro- 
vitch Razumov, third year's student of philosophy, was 

5 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


looked upon as a strong nature — an altogether trust- 
worthy man. This, in a country where an opinion may 
be a legal crime visited by death or sometimes by a fate 
worse than mere death, meant that he was worthy of 
being trusted with forbidden opinions. He was liked 
also for his amiability and for his quiet readiness to 
oblige his comrades even at the cost of personal in- 
convenience. 

Mr. Razumov was supposed to be the son of an Arch- 
priest and to be protected by a distinguished nobleman 
— perhaps of his own distant province. But his outward 
appearance accorded badly with such humble origin. 
Such a descent was not credible. It was, indeed, sug- 
gested that Mr. Razumov was the son of an Archpriest's 
pretty daughter — which, of course, would put a different 
complexion on the matter. This theory also rendered 
intelligible the protection of the distinguished nobleman. 
All this, however, had never been investigated ma- 
liciously or otherwise. No one knew or cared who the 
nobleman in question was. Razumov received a modest 
but very sufficient allowance from the hands of an j 
obscure attorney, who seemed to act as his guardian in | 
some measure. Now and then he appeared at some j 
professor’s informal reception. Apart from that Ra- ij 
zumov was not known to have any social relations in j 
the town. He attended the obligatory lectures regularly 
and was considered by the authorities as a very promis- | 
ing student. He worked at home in the manner of a ' 
man who means to get on, but did not shut himself up 
severely for that purpose. He was always accessible, ' 
and there was nothing secret or reserved in his life. i* 


I 


T he origin of Mr. Razumov’s record is connected with 
an event characteristic of modern Russia in the actual 
fact: the assassination of a prominent statesman — and 
still more characteristic of the moral corruption of an 
oppressed society where the noblest aspirations of hu- 
manity, the desire of freedom, an ardent patriotism, the 
love of justice, the sense of pity, and even the fidelity of 
simple minds are prostituted to the lusts of hate and fear, 
the inseparable companions of an uneasy despotism. 

The fact alluded to above is the successful attempt on 

the life of Mr. de P , the President of the notorious 

Repressive Commission of some years ago, the Minister 
of State invested with extraordinary powers. The news- 
papers made noise enough about that fanatical, narrow- 
chested figure in gold-laced uniform, with a face of 
crumpled parchment, insipid, bespectacled eyes, and 
the cross of the Order of St. Procopius hung under the 
skinny throat. For a time, it may be remembered, not 
a month passed without his portrait appearing in some 
one of the illustrated papers of Europe. He served the 
monarchy by imprisoning, exiling, or sending to the 
gallows men and women, young and old, with an equable, 
unwearied industry. In his mystic acceptance of the 
principle of autocracy he was bent on extirpating from 
the land every vestige of anything that resembled free- 
dom in public institutions; and in his ruthless persecu- 
tion of the rising generation he seemed to aim at the 
destruction of the very hope of liberty itself. 

It is said that this execrated personality had not 
2 7 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


enough imagination to be aware of the hate he inspired. 
It is hardly credible; but it is a fact that he took very 
few precautions for his safety. In the preamble of a 
certain famous State paper he had declared once that 
“the thought of liberty has never existed in the Act of 
the Creator. From the multitude of men’s counsel 
nothing could come but revolt and disorder; and revolt 
and disorder in a world created for obedience and 
stability is sin. It was not Reason, but Authority, which 
expressed the Divine Intention. God was the Autocrat 
of the Universe. ...” It may be that the man who 
made this declaration believed that Heaven itself was 
bound to protect him in his remorseless defense of au- 
tocracy on this earth. 

No doubt the vigilance of the police saved him many 
times; but, as a matter of fact, when his appointed fate 
overtook him, the competent authorities could not have 
given him any warning. They had no knowledge of any 
conspiracy against the Minister’s life, had no hint of any 
plot through their usual channels of information, had 
seen no signs, were aware of no suspicious movements 
or dangerous persons. 

Mr. de P was being driven toward the railway 

station in a two-horse uncovered sleigh with footman 
and coachman on the box. Snow had been falling all 
night, making the roadway, uncleared as yet at this early 
hour, very heavy for the horses. It was still falling 
thickly. But the sleigh must have been observed and 
marked down. As it drew over to the left before taking 
a turn, the footman noticed a peasant walking slowly on 
the edge of the pavement with his hands in the pockets 
of his sheepskin coat and his shoulders hunched up to his 
ears under the falling snow. On being overtaken this 
peasant suddenly faced about and swung his arm. In an 
instant there was a terrible shock, a detonation muffled in 
the multitude of snowflakes; both horses lay dead and 
mangled on the ground and the coachman, with a shrill 

8 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


cry, had fallen off the box mortally wounded. The foot- 
man (who survived) had no time to see the face of the 
man in the sheepskin coat. After throwing the bomb 
this last got away, but it is supposed that, seeing a lot of 
people surging up on all sides of him in the falling snow, 
and all running toward the scene of the explosion, he 
thought it safer to turn back with them. 

In an incredibly short time an excited crowd assembled 
round the sledge. The Minister-President, getting out 
unhurt into the deep snow, stood near the groaning 
coachman and addressed the people repeatedly in his 
weak, colorless voice, “ I beg of you to keep off. For the 
love of God, I beg of you good people to keep off.” 

It was then that a tall young man who had remained 
standing perfectly still within a carriage gateway, two 
houses lower down, stepped out into the street and, walk- 
ing up rapidly, flung another bomb over the heads of the 
crowd. It actually struck the Minister- President on the 
shoulder as he stooped over his dying servant, then, 
falling between his feet, exploded with a terrific concen- 
trated violence, striking him dead to the ground, finish- 
ing the wounded man and practically annihilating the 
empty sledge in the twinkling of an eye. With a yell of 
horror the crowd broke up and fled in all directions, except 
for those who fell dead or dying where they stood nearest 
to the Minister-President, and one or two others who did 
not fall till they had run on a little way. 

The first explosion had brought together a crowd as if 
by enchantment, the second made as swiftly a solitude 
in the street for hundreds of yards in each direction. 
Through the falling snow people looked from afar at the 
small heap of dead bodies lying upon one another near the 
carcasses of the two horses. Nobody dared to approach 
till some Cossacks of a street patrol galloped up and, 
dismounting, began to turn over the dead. Among the 
innocent victims of the second explosion laid out on the 
pavement there was a body dressed in a peasant’s sheep- 

9 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


skin coat; but the face was unrecognizable, there was 
absolutely nothing found in the pockets of its poor cloth- 
ing, and it was the only one whose identity was never 
established. 

That day Mr. Razumov got up at his usual hour and 
spent the morning within the university buildings listen- 
ing to the lectures and working for some time in the 
library. He heard the first vague rumor of something 
in the way of bomb-throwing at the table of the students’ 
ordinary, where he was accustomed to eat his two-o’clock 
dinner. But this rumor was made up of mere whispers, 
and this was Russia, where it is not always safe, for a 
student especially, to appear too much interested in 
certain kinds of whispers. Razumov was one of those 
men who, living in a period of mental and political un- 
rest, keep an instinctive hold on normal, practical, every- 
day life. He was aware of the emotional tension of his 
time; he even responded to it in an indefinite way. But 
his main concern was with his work, his studies, and 
with his own future. 

Officially, and in fact without a family (for the 
daughter of the Archpriest had long been dead), no 
home influences had shaped his opinions or his feelings. 
He was as lonely in the world as a man swimming in 
the deep sea. The word Razumov was the mere label 
of a solitary individuality. There were no Razumovs 
belonging to him anywhere. His closest parentage was 
defined in the statement that he was a Russian. What- 
ever good he expected from life would be given to or 
withheld from his hopes by that connection alone. This 
immense parentage suffered from the throes of internal 
dissensions, and he shrank mentally from the fray as 
a good-natured man may shrink from taking definite 
sides in a violent family quarrel. 

Razumov, going home, reflected that, having prepared 
all the matters of the forthcoming examination, he could 
now devote his time to the subject of the prize essay. 

10 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


He hankered after the silver medal. The prize was 
offered by the Ministry of Education; the names of the 
competitors would be submitted to the Minister him- 
self. The mere fact of trying would be considered 
meritorious in the higher quarters, and the possessor 
of the prize would have a claim to an administrative ap- 
pointment of the better sort after he had taken his 
degree. The student Razumov, in an access of elation, 
forgot the dangers menacing the stability of the in- 
stitutions that give rewards and appointments. But 
remembering the medalist of the year before, Razumov, 
the young man of no parentage, was sobered. He and 
some others happened to be assembled in their com- 
rade’s rooms at the very time when that last received 
the official advice of his success. He was a quiet, un- 
assuming young man. “Forgive me,” he had said, 
with a faint apologetic smile and taking up his cap, 
“I am going out to order up some wine. But I must 
first send a telegram to my folks at home. I say! 
Won’t the old people make it a festive time for the 
neighbors for twenty miles around our place!” 

Razumov thought there was nothing of that sort for 
him in the world. His success would matter to no one. 
But he felt no bitterness against the nobleman, his pro- 
tector, who was not a provincial magnate, as was gen- 
erally supposed. He was, in fact, nobody less than 

Prince K , once a great and splendid figure in the 

world, and now, his day being over, a senator and a 
gouty subject living in a still splendid but more do- 
mestic manner. He had some young children, and a 
wife as aristocratic and proud as himself. 

In all his life Razumov was allowed only once to come 
into personal contact with the Prince. 

It had the air of a chance meeting in the little attor- 
ney’s office. One day Razumov, coming in by appoint- 
ment, found a stranger standing there — a tall, aristo- 
cratic-looking personage with silky, gray side-whiskers. 

II 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


The bald-headed, sly, little lawyer-fellow called out: 
“Come in — come in, Mr. Razumov!” with a sort of 
ironic heartiness. Then, turning deferentially to the 
stranger with the grand air: “A ward of mine, your 
Excellency. One of the most promising students of his 
faculty in the St. Petersburg University.” 

To his intense surprise Razumov saw a white, shapely 
hand extended to him. He took it in great confusion 
(it was soft and passive), and heard at the same time a 
condescending murmur in which he caught only the 
words, “satisfactory” and “persevere.” But the most 
amazing thing of all was to feel suddenly a distinct 
pressure of the white, shapely hand just before it was 
withdrawn — a light pressure like a secret sign. The 
emotion of it was terrible. Razumov’s heart seemed 
to leap into his throat. When he raised his eyes the 
aristocratic personage, motioning the little law^yer aside, 
had opened the door and was going out. 

The attorney rummaged among the papers on his 
desk for a time. “Do you know who that was?” he 
asked, suddenly. 

Razumov, whose heart was thumping hard yet, shook 
his head in silence. 

“That was Prince K . You wonder what he 

could be doing in the hole of a poor legal rat like my- 
self — eh ? These awfully great people have their senti- 
mental curiosities like common sinners. But if I were 
you, Kirylo Sidorovitch,” he continued, leering and lay- 
ing a peculiar emphasis on the patronymic, “I wouldn’t 
boast at large of the introduction. It would not be 
prudent, Kirylo Sidorovitch. Oh, dear, no! It would 
be, in fact, dangerous for your future.” 

The young man’s ears burned like fire; his sight was 
dim. “That man!” Razumov was saying to himself. 
“He!” 

Henceforth it was by this monosyllable that Mr. 
Razumov got into the habit of referring mentally to the 
12 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


stranger with gray, silky side- whiskers. From that 
time, too, when walking in the more fashionable quar- 
ters, he noted with interest the magnificent horses and 

carriages with Prince K-- 's liveries on the box. Once 

he saw the Princess get out — she was shopping — followed 
by two girls, of which one was nearly a head taller than 
the other. Their fair hair hung loose down their backs 
in the English style; they had merry eyes; their coats, 
muffs, and little fur caps were exactly alike, and their 
cheeks and noses were tinged a cheerful pink by the 
frost. They crossed the pavement in front of him, and 
Razumov went on his way smiling shyly to himself. 
“ His ” daughters . They resembled ‘ ‘ Him . ’ ’ The young 
man felt a glow of warm friendliness toward these girls 
who would never know of his existence. Presently they 
would marry generals or Kammerherrs and have girls 
and boys of their own, who, perhaps, would be aware 
of him as a celebrated old professor, decorated, possibly 
a Privy-Councilor, one of the glories of Russia — nothing 
more! 

But a celebrated professor was a somebody. Dis- 
tinction would convert the label Razumov into an hon- 
ored name. There was nothing strange in the student 
Razumov’s wish for distinction. A man’s real life is 
that accorded to him in the thoughts of other men by 
reason of respect or natural love. Returning home on 

the day of the attempt on Mr. de P ’s life, Razumov 

resolved to have a good try for the Silver Medal. 

Climbing slowly the four flights of the dark, dirty 
staircase in the house where he had his lodgings, he felt 
confident of success. The winner’s name would be pub- 
lished in the papers on New-Year’s day. And at the 
thought that “He” would most probably read it there, 
Razumov stopped short on the stairs for an instant, then 
went on smiling faintly at his own emotion. “This is 
but a shadow,” he said to himself, “but the medal is a 
solid beginning.” 


13 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


With those ideas of industry in his head, the warmth of 
his room was agreeable and encouraging. “I shall put 
in four hours of good work,” he thought. But no sooner 
had he closed the door than he was horribly startled. 
All black against the usual tall stove of white tiles gleam- 
ing in the dusk stood a strange figure wearing a skirted, 
close-fitting, brown-cloth coat strapped round the waist, 
in long boots and with a little Astrakhan cap on its head. 
It loomed lithe and martial. Razumov was utterly con- 
founded. It was only when the figure, advancing two 
paces, asked in an untroubled, grave voice if the outer 
door was closed, that he regained his power of speech. 

“Haldin! . . . Victor Victoro vitch ! ... Is that you? 
. . . Yes. The outer door is shut all right. But this 
is indeed unexpected.” 

Victor Haldin, a student older than most of his con- 
temporaries at the University, was not one of the in- 
dustrious set. He was hardly ever seen at lectures ; the 
authorities had marked him as “restless ” and “ unsound ” 
— very bad notes. But he had a great personal pres- 
tige with his comrades, and influenced their thoughts. 
Razumov had never been intimate with him. They had 
met from time to time at gatherings in other students’ 
houses. They had even had a discussion together — one 
of those discussions on first principles dear to the san- 
guine minds of youth. 

Razumov wished the man had chosen some other time 
to come for a chat. He felt in good trim to tackle the 
prize essay. But, as Haldin could not be slightingly dis- 
missed, Razumov adopted the tone of hospitality, asking 
him to sit down and smoke. 

“Kirylo Sidoro vitch,” said the other, “we are not, 
perhaps, in exactly the same camp. Your judgment is 
more philosophical. You are a man of few words, but I 
haven’t met anybody who dared to doubt the generos- 
ity of your sentiments. There is a solidity about your 
character which cannot exist without courage.” 

14 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


Razumov felt flattered and began to mutter shyly 
something about being very glad of his good opinion, 
when Hal din raised his hand. 

“This is what I was saying to myself,” he continued, 
“as I dodged in the woodyard down by the river-side. 
‘He has a strong character, this young man,* I said to 
myself. ‘He does not throw his soul to the winds.* 
Your reserve has always fascinated me, Kirylo Sidoro- 
vitch. So I tried to remember your address. But look 
here — it was a piece of luck. Your dvornik was away 
from the gate talking to a sleigh-driver on the other side 
of the street. I met no one on the stairs, not a soul. 
As I came up to your floor I caught sight of your land- 
lady coming out of your rooms. But she did not see me. 
She crossed the landing to her own side, and then I 
slipped in. I have been here two hours expecting you to 
come in every moment.’* 

Razumov had listened in astonishment, but before he 
could open his mouth Haldin added, speaking deliber- 
ately: “ It was I who removed De P this morning.” 

Razumov kept down a cry of dismay. The sentiment 
of his life being utterly ruined by this contact with such a 
crime expressed itself quaintly by a sort of half-derisive 
mental exclamation: “There goes my Silver Medal!” 

Haldin continued, after waiting awhile : 

“You say nothing, Kirylo Sidorovitch! I understand 
vour silence. To be sure, I cannot expect you, with your 
frigid English manner, to embrace me. But never mind 
your manners. You have enough heart to have heard 
the sound of weeping and gnashing of teeth this man 
raised in the land. That would be enough to get over 
any philosophical hopes. He was uprooting the tender 
plant. He had to be stopped. He was a dangerous 
man — a convinced man. Three more years of his work 
would have put us back fifty years into bondage — and 
look at all the lives wasted, at all the souls lost in that 
time!” 


15 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


His curt, self-confident voice suddenly lost its ring, and 
it was in a dull tone that he added: “Yes, brother, I 
have killed him. It’s weary work.” 

Razumov had sunk into a chair. Every moment he 
expected a crowd of policemen to rush in. There must 
have been thousands of them out looking for that man 
walking up and down in his room. Haldin was talking 
again in a restrained, steady voice. Now and then he 
flourished an arm, slowly, without excitement. 

He told Razumov how he had brooded for a year; 
how he had not slept properly for weeks. He and 
“Another” had a warning of the Minister’s movements 
from “a certain person” late the evening before. He 
and that “Another” prepared their “engines” and re- 
solved to have no sleep till “the deed” was done. They 
walked the streets under the falling snow with the 
“engines” on them, exchanging not a word the livelong 
night. When they happened to meet a police patrol 
they took each other by the arm and pretended to be a 
couple of peasants on the spree. They reeled and talked 
in drunken, hoarse voices. Except for these strange out- 
breaks they kept silence, moving on ceaselessly. Their 
plans had been previously arranged. At daybreak they 
made their way to the spot which they knew the sledge 
must pass. When it appeared in sight they exchanged a 
muttered good-by and separated. The ‘ ‘ other ’ ’ remained 
at the corner; Haldin took up a position a little farther 
up the street. . . . 

After throwing his “engine” he ran off, and in a 
moment was overtaken by the panic -struck people 
flying away from the spot after the second explosion. 
They were wild with terror. He was jostled once or 
twice. He slowed down for the rush to pass him, and 
then turned to the left into a narrow street. There he 
was alone. 

He marveled at this immediate escape. The work 
was done. He could hardly believe it. He fought v/ith 

i6 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


an almost irresistible longing to lie down on the pave- 
ment and sleep. But this sort of faintness — a drowsy 
faintness — passed off quickly. He walked faster, mak- 
ing his way to one of the poorer parts of the town in 
order to look up Ziemianitch. 

This Ziemianitch, Razumov understood, was a sort of 
town peasant who had got on — owner of a small number 
of sledges and horses for hire. Haldin paused in his 
narrative to exclaim: 

“A bright spirit! A hardy soul! The best driver in 
St. Petersburg. He has a team of three horses there. . . . 
Ah! he’s a fellow!” 

This man had declared himself willing to take out 
safely, at any time, one or two persons to the second or 
third railway station on one of the southern lines. But 
there had been no time to warn him the night before. 
His usual haunt seemed to be a low-class eating-house 
on the outskirts of the town. When Haldin got there 
the man was not to be found. He was not expected to 
turn up again till the evening. Haldin wandered away 
restlessly. 

He saw the gate of a woodyard open, and went in to 
get out of the wind which swept the bleak, broad 
thoroughfares. The great rectangular piles of cut wood 
loaded with snow resembled the huts of a village. At 
first the watchman, who discovered him crouching 
among them, talked in a friendly manner. He was a 
dried-up old man wearing two ragged army coats, one 
over the other; his wizened little face, tied up under 
the jaw and over the ears in a dirty red handkerchief, 
looked comical. Presently he grew sulky, and then all at 
once, without rhyme or reason, began to shout furiously: 

“Aren’t you ever going to clear out of this, you 
loafer? We know all about factory hands of your sort. 
A big, strong, young chap! You aren’t even drunk! 
What do you want here ? You don’t frighten us. Take 
yourself and your ugly eyes away.” 

17 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


Haldin stopped before the sitting Razumov. His 
supple figure, with the white forehead, above which the 
fair hair stood straight up, had an aspect of lofty daring. 

“He did not like my eyes,” he said. “And so . . . 
here I am.” 

Razumov made an effort to speak calmly. 

“But pardon me, Victor Victorovitch. We know each 
other so little. ... I don’t see why you . . . ?” 

“Confidence,” said Haldin. 

This word sealed Razumov’s lips as if a hand had been 
clapped on his mouth. His brain seethed with argu- 
ments. 

“And so — here you are,” he muttered, through his 
teeth. 

The other did not detect the tone of anger. Never 
suspected it. 

“Yes. And nobody knows I am here. You are the 
last person that could be suspected — should I get caught. 
That’s an advantage, you see. And then — speaking to 
a superior mind like yours — I can well say all the truth. 
It occurred to me that you — you have no one belonging 
to you — ^no ties, no one to suffer for it if this came out 
by some means. There have been enough ruined Rus- 
sian homes as it is. But I don’t see how my passage 
through your rooms can be ever known. If I should be 
got hold of I’ll know how to keep silent — no matter what 
they may be pleased to do to me,” he added, grimly. 

He began to walk again, while Razumov sat still 
appalled. 

“You thought that — ” he faltered out, almost sick with 
indignation. 

“Yes, Razumov. Yes, brother. Some day you shall 
help to build. You suppose that I am a terrorist, now — 
a destructor of what is. But consider that the true destroy- 
ers are they who destroy the spirit of progress and truth, 
not the avengers who merely kill the bodies of persecu- 
tors of human dignity. Men like me are necessary to make 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 

room for self-contained, thinking men like you. Well, we 
have made the sacrifice of our lives, but all the same I want 
to escape if it can be done. It is not my life I want to 
save, but my power to do. I won’t live idle. Oh no! 
Don’t make any mistake, Razumov. Men like me are 
rare. And, besides, an example like this is more awful 
to oppressors when the perpetrator vanished without a 
trace. They sit in their offices and palaces and quake. 
All I want you to do is to help me to vanish. No great 
matter that. Only to go by - and - by and see Ziemia- 
nitch for me at that place where I went this morning. 
Just tell him ‘He whom you know wants a well-horsed 
sledge to pull up half an hour after midnight, at the 
seventh lamp-post on the left, counting from the upper 
end of Karabelnaya. If nobody gets in, the sledge is to 
run round a block or two, so as to come back past the 
same spot in ten minutes’ time.’ ” 

Razumov wondered why he had not cut short that 
talk and told this man to go away long before. Was it 
weakness or what ? 

He concluded that it was a sound instinct. Haldin 
must have been seen. It was impossible that some peo- 
ple should not have noticed the face and appearance of 
the man who threw the bomb. Haldin was a noticeable 
person. The police in their thousands must have had 
his description within the hour. With every moment 
the danger grew. Sent out to wander in the streets, he 
could not escape being caught in the end. 

The police would very soon find out all about him. They 
would set about discovering a conspiracy. Everybody 
Haldin had ever known would be in the greatest danger. 
Unguarded expressions, little facts in themselves inno- 
cent, would be counted for crimes. Razumov remem- 
bered certain words he had said, the speeches he had 
listened to, the harmless gatherings he had attended — 
it was almost impossible for a student to keep out of that 
sort of thing without becoming suspect to his comrades. 

19 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


Razumov saw himself shut up in a fortress, worried, 
badgered, perhaps ill-used. He saw himself deported 
by an administrative order, his life broken, ruined, and 
robbed of all hope. He saw himself — at best — leading 
a miserable existence under police supervision in some 
small, far-away provincial town, without friends to 
assist his necessities or even take any steps to alleviate 
his lot — as others had. Others had fathers, mothers, 
brothers, relations, connections, friends to move heaven 
and earth on their behalf — he had no one. The very 
officials that sentenced him some morning would forget 
his existence before sunset. 

He saw his youth pass away from him in misery and 
half starvation — his strength give way, his mind become 
an abject thing. He saw himself creeping, broken-down 
and shabby, about the streets — dying unattended in 
some filthy hole of a room or on the sordid bed of a 
government hospital. 

He shuddered. Then a sort of bitter calmness came 
over him. It was best to keep this man out of the 
streets till he could be got rid of with some chance of 
escaping. That was the best that could be done. 
Razumov, of course, felt the safety of his lonely exist- 
ence to be permanently endangered. This evening’s 
doings could turn up against him at any time as long as 
this man lived and the present institutions endured. 
They appeared to him rational and indestructible at 
that moment. They had a force of harmony in con- 
trast with the horrible discord of this man’s presence. 
He hated the man. He said, quietly: 

“Yes. Of course I will go. You must give me pre- 
cise directions, and for the rest — depend on me.” 

“Ah! You are a fellow! Collected — cool as a cucum- 
ber. A regular Englishman. Where did you get your 
soul from? There aren’t many like you. Look here, 
brother! Men like me leave no posterity, but their souls 
are not lost. No man’s soul is ever lost. It works for 

20 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


itself — or else where would be the sense of self-sacrifice, 
of martyrdom, of conviction, of faith — the labors of the 
soul? What will become of my soul when I die in the 
way I must die — soon — very soon, perhaps? It shall 
not perish. Don’t make a mistake, Razumov. This is 
not murder — it is war, war. My spirit shall go on 
warring in some Russian body till all falsehood is swept 
out of the world. The modem civilization is false, but 
a new revelation shall come out of Russia. Ha! you 
say nothing. You are a skeptic. I respect your philo- 
sophical skepticism, Razumov, but don’t touch the soul — 
the Russian soul that lives in all of us; it has a future. 
It has a mission, I tell you, or else why should I have 
been moved to do this — reckless — like a butcher — in 
the middle of all these innocent people — scattering 
death — I! I! ... I wouldn’t hurt a fly!” 

“Not so loud,” warned Razumov, harshly. 

Haldin sat down abruptly, and, leaning his head on 
his folded arms, burst into tears. He wept for a long 
time. The dusk had deepened in the room. Razu- 
mov, motionless in somber wonder, listened to the 
sobs. 

The other raised his head, got up, and with an effort 
mastered his voice. 

“Yes. Men like me leave no posterity,” he repeated, 
in a subdued tone. “I have a sister, though. She’s 
with my old mother. I persuaded them to go abroad 
this year — thank God! Not a bad little girl — my 
sister. She has the most trustful eyes of any human 
being that ever walked this earth. She will marry well, 
I hope. She may have children — sons perhaps. Look 
at me. My father was a government official in the prov- 
inces. He had a little land, too. A simple servant of 
God — a true Russian in his way. His was the soul of 
obedience. But I am not like him. They say I re- 
semble my mother’s eldest brother, an officer. They 
shot him in ’28. Under Nicholas you know. Haven’t 

21 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


I told you that this is war, war. . . . But God of Justice I 
This is weary work.” 

Razumov, in his chair, leaning his head on his hand, 
spoke as if from the bottom of an abyss. 

“ You believe in God, Haldin ?” 

“There you go catching at words that are wrung from 
one. What does it matter? What was it the Eng- 
lishman said: ‘There is a divine soul in things. . . / 
Devil take him — I don’t remember now. But he spoke 
the truth. When the day of you thinkers comes don’t 
you forget what’s divine in the Russian soul — and that’s 
resignation. Respect that in your intellectual restless- 
ness, and don’t let your arrogant wisdom spoil its mes- 
sage to the world. I am speaking to you now like a 
man with a rope round his neck. What do you imagine 
I am? A being in revolt? No. It’s you thinkers who 
are in everlasting revolt. I am one of the resigned. 
When the necessity of this heavy work came to me, and 
I understood that it had to be done — what did I do? 
Did I exult? Did I take pride in my purpose? Did I 
try to weigh its worth and consequences? No! I was 
resigned. I thought ‘God’s will be done.’” 

He threw himself full length on Razumov’ s bed, and, 
putting the backs of his hands over his eyes, remained 
perfectly motionless and silent. Not even the sound of 
his breathing could be heard. The dead stillness of the 
room remained undisturbed till in the darkness Razumov 
said, in a gloomy murmur* 

“Haldin.” 

“Yes,” answered the other, readily, quite invisible 
now on the bed and without the slightest stir. 

“Isn’t it time for me to start?” 

“Yes, brother,” the other was heard, lying still in the 
darkness as though he were talking in his sleep. “The 
time has come to put fate to the test.” 

He paused, then gave a few lucid directions in the 
quiet, impersonal voice of a man in a trance. Razumov 

22 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


made ready without a word of answer. As he was leav- 
ing the room, the voice on the bed said after him: 

“Go with God, thou silent soul.” 

On the landing, moving softly, Razumov locked the 
door and put the key in his pocket. 


3 


ll 


HE words and events of that evening must have 



1 been graven as if with a steel tool on Mr. Razu- 
mov’s brain, since he was able to write his relation with 
such fullness and precision a good many months after- 


ward. 


The record of the thoughts which assailed him in the 
street is even more minute and abundant. They seem 
to have rushed upon him with the greater freedom be- 
cause his thinking powers were no longer crushed by 
Haldin’s presence — the appalling presence of a great 
crime and the stunning force of a great fanaticism. On 
looking through the pages of Mr. Razumov’s diary I 
own that a “rush of thoughts” is not an adequate image. 

The more adequate description would be a tumult of 
thoughts — the faithful reflection of the state of his feel- 
ings. The thoughts in themselves were not numerous — 
they were, like the thoughts of most human beings, few 
and simple — ^but they cannot be reproduced here in all 
their exclamatory repetitions, which went on in a long 
and weary turmoil — for the walk was long. 

If to the Western reader they appear shocking, in- 
appropriate, or even improper, it must be remembered 
that as to the first this may be the effect of my crude 
statement. For the rest I will only remark here that 
this is not a story of the West of Europe. 

Nations, it may be, have fashioned their govern- 
ments, but the governments have paid them back in the 
same coin. It is unthinkable that any young English- 
man should find himself in Razumov’s situation. This 


24 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


being so, it would be a vain enterprise to imagine what 
he would think. The only safe surmise to make is that 
he would not think as Mr. Razumov thought at this 
crisis of his fate. He would not have an hereditary and 
personal knowledge of the means by which an historical 
autocracy represses ideas, guards its power, and defends 
its existence. By an act of mental extravagance he 
might imagine himself arbitrarily thrown into prison; 
but it would never occur to him unless he were delirious 
(and perhaps not even then) that he could be beaten 
with whips as a practical measure either of investigation 
or of punishment. 

This is but a crude and obvious example of the differ- 
ent conditions of Western thought. I don’t know that 
this danger occurred specially to Mr. Razumov. No 
doubt it entered unconsciously into the general dread 
and the general appallingness of this crisis. Razumov, 
as has been seen, was aware of more subtle ways in 
which an individual may be undone by the proceedings 
of a despotic government. A simple expulsion from the 
University (the very least that could happen to him), 
with an impossibility to continue his studies anywhere, 
was enough to ruin utterly a young man depending en- 
tirely upon the development of his natural abilities for 
his place in the world. He was a Russian; and for him 
to be implicated meant simply sinking into the lowest 
social depths among the hopeless and the destitute — 
the night birds of the city. 

The peculiar circumstances of Razumov’s parentage, 
or rather of his lack of parentage, should be taken into 
the account of his thoughts. And he remembered them, 
too. He had been lately reminded of them in a peculiar- 
ly atrocious way by this fatal Haldin. “Because I 
haven’t that, must everything else be taken away from 
me?” bethought. 

He nerved himself for another effort to go on. Along 
the roadway sledges glided phantom-like and jingling 

2 $ 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


through a fluttering whiteness on the black face of the 
night. “For it is a crime,” he was saying to himself. 
“A murder is a murder. Though, of course, some sort 
of liberal institutions ...” 

A feeling of horrible sickness came over him. “I 
must be courageous,” he exhorted himself, mentally. 
All his strength was suddenly gone, as if taken out by 
a hand. Then by a mighty effort of will it came back, 
because he was afraid of fainting in the street and being 
picked up by the police with the key of his lodgings in 
his pocket. They would find Haldin there, and then, 
indeed, he would be undone. 

Strangely enough it was this fear which seems to have 
kept him up to the end. The passers-by were rare. 
They came upon him suddenly, looming up black in the 
snowflakes close by, then vanishing all at once — with- 
out footfalls. 

It was the quarter of the very poor. Razumov noticed 
an elderly woman tied up in ragged shawls. Under the 
street lamp she seemed a beggar off duty. She walked 
leisurely in the blizzard, as though she had no home 
to hurry to; she hugged under one arm a round loaf of 
black bread with an air of guarding a priceless booty, 
and Razumov, averting his glance, envied her the peace 
of her mind and the serenity of her fate. 

To one reading Mr. Razumov ’s narrative it is really 
a wonder how he managed to keep going as he did along 
one interminable street after another on pavements 
that were gradually becoming blocked with snow. It 
was the thought of Haldin locked up in his rooms, and 
the desperate desire to get rid of his presence, which 
drove him forward. No rational determination had any 
part in his exertions. Thus, when on arriving at the 
low eating-house he heard that the man of horses, 
Ziemianitch, was not there, he could only stare stupidly. 

The waiter, a wild-haired youth in tarred boots and 
a pink shirt, exclaimed, uncovering his pale gums in a 

26 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


silly grin, that Ziemianitch had got his skinful early in 
the afternoon and had gone away with a bottle under 
each arm to keep it up among the horses — he supposed. 

The owner of the vile den, a bony, short man in a 
dirty cloth caftan coming down to his heels, stood by, 
his hands tucked into his belt, and nodded confirmation. 

The reek of spirits, the greasy, rancid steam of food 
got Razumov by the throat. He struck a table with his 
clenched hand, and shouted violently: 

“You lie.” 

Bleary, unwashed faces were turned in his direction. 
A mild-eyed, ragged tramp drinking tea at the next 
table moved farther away. A murmur of wonder arose 
with an undertone of uneasiness. A laugh was heard, 
too, and an exclamation. “There! There!” jeeringly 
soothing. The waiter looked all round and announced 
to the room: 

“The gentleman won’t believe that Ziemianitch is 
drunk.” 

From a distant comer a hoarse voice belonging to a 
horrible nondescript, shaggy being, with a black face 
like the muzzle of a bear, grunted angrily : 

“The cursed driver of thieves. What do we want 
with his gentlemen here? We are all honest folk in 
this place.” 

Razumov, biting his lip till blood came to keep him- 
self from bursting into imprecations, followed the owner 
of the den, who, whispering, “Come along, little father,” 
led him into a tiny hole of a place behind the wooden 
counter, whence proceeded a sound of splashing. A wet 
and bedraggled creature, a sort of sexless and shivering 
scarecrow, washed glasses in there, bending over a 
wooden tub by the light of a tallow dip. 

“Yes, little father,” the man in the long caftan said, 
plaintively. He had a brown, cunning little face, a thin, 
grayish beard. Trying to light a tin lantern, he hugged 
it to his breast and talked garrulously the while. 

27 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


He would show Ziemianitch to the gentleman to prove 
there were no lies told. And he would show him drunk. 
His woman, it seems, ran away from him last night. 
“Such a hag she was! Thin! Tfui!” He spat. They 
were always running away from that driver of the devil — 
and he sixty years old, too; could never get used to 
it. But each heart knows sorrow after its own kind, 
and Ziemianitch was a bom fool all his days. And then 
he would fly to the bottle. “ ‘Who could bear life in 
our land without the bottle ?’ he says. A proper Russian 
man — the little pig. ... Be pleased to follow me.“ 

Razumov crossed a quadrangle of deep snow inclosed 
between high walls with innumerable windows. Here 
and there a dim yellow light hung within the four- 
square mass of darkness. The house was an enormous 
slum, a hive of human vermin, a monumental abode of 
misery towering on the verge of starvation and despair. 

In a corner the ground sloped sharply down, and 
Razumov followed the light of the lantern through a 
small doorway into a long, cavernous place like a 
neglected subterranean byre. Deep within, three shaggy 
little horses tied up to rings hung their heads together, 
motionless and shadowy in the dim light of the lantern. 
It must have been the famous team of Haldin’s escape. 
Razumov peered fearfully into the gloom. His guide 
pawed in the straw with his foot. 

“Here he is. Ah! the little pigeon. A true Russian 
man. ‘No heavy hearts for me,’ he says. ‘Bring out 
the bottle and take your ugly mug out of my sight.’ 
Ha, ha, ha! That’s the fellow he is.’’ 

He held the lantern over a prone form of a man, 
apparently fully dressed for outdoors. His head was 
lost in a pointed cloth hood. On the other side of a 
heap of straw protruded a pair of feet in monstrous 
thick boots. 

“Always ready to drive,’’ commented the keeper of 
the eating-house. “A proper Russian driver that. 

28 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


Saint or devil, night or day, is all one to Ziemianitch 
when his heart is free from sorrow. ‘I don’t ask who 
you are, but where you want to go,’ he says. He would 
drive Satan himself to his own abode and come back 
whistling to his horses. Many a one he has driven who 
is clanking his chains in the Nertchinsk mines by this 
time.” 

Razumov shuddered. 

“Call out! Wake him up!” he faltered out. 

The other set down his light, stepped back, and 
launched a kick at the prostrate sleeper. The man 
shook at the impact, but did not move. At the third 
kick he grunted, but remained inert as before. 

The eating-house keeper desisted and fetched a deep 
sigh. 

‘‘You see for yourself how it is. We have done what 
we can for you.” 

He picked up the lantern. The intense black spokes 
of shadow swung about in the circle of light. A terrible 
fury — the blind rage of self-preservation — possessed 
Razumov. 

‘‘Ah! The vile beast!” he bellowed out in an un- 
earthly tone which made the lantern jump and tremble: 
‘‘I shall wake you! Give me . . . Give me . . .” 

He looked round wildly, seized the handle of a broken 
stable fork, and, rushing forward, struck at the prostrate 
body with inarticulate cries. After a time his cries 
ceased and the rain of blows fell in the stillness and 
shadows of the cellar-like stable. Razumov belabored 
Ziemianitch with an insatiable fury, in great volleys of 
sounding thwacks. Except for the violent movements 
of Razumov, nothing stirred, neither the beaten man nor 
the spoke-like shadows on the walls. And only the 
sound of blows was heard. It was a strange scene. 

Suddenly there was a sharp crack. The stick broke, 
and half of it flew far away into the gloom beyond the 
light. At the same time Ziemianitch sat up. At this 

39 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


Razumov became as motionless as the man with the 
lantern — only his breast heaved for air as if ready to 
burst. 

Some dull sensation of pain must have penetrated at 
last the consoling night of drunkenness enwrapping the 
“bright Russian soul” of Haldin’s enthusiastic praise. 
But Ziemianitch evidently saw nothing. His eyeballs 
blinked all white in the light once, twice — then the gleam 
went out. For a moment he sat in the straw with closed 
eyes with a strange air of weary meditation, then fell 
over slowly on his side without making the slightest 
sound. Only the straw rustled a little. Razumov 
stared wildly, fighting for his breath. After a second or 
two he heard a light snore. 

He flung from him the piece of stick remaining in his 
grasp, and went off with great, hasty strides without look- 
ing back once. 

After going heedlessly for some fifty yards along the 
street, he walked into a snowdrift and was up to his knees 
before he stopped. 

This recalled him to himself, and, glancing about, he 
discovered he had been going in the wrong direction. 
He retraced his steps, but now at a more moderate pace. 
When passing before the house he had just left he flour- 
ished his fist at the somber refuge of misery and crime 
rearing its sinister bulk on the white ground. It had an 
air of brooding. He let his arm fall by his side — dis- 
couraged. 

Ziemianitch’s passionate surrender to sorrow and con- 
solation had baffled him. That was the people. A true 
Russian man! Razumov was glad he had beaten that 
brute — the “bright soul” of the other. Here they were : 
the people and the enthusiast. 

Between the two he was done for. Between the 
drunkenness of the peasant incapable of action and the 
dream intoxication of the idealist incapable of perceiving 
the reason of things and the true character of men. 

30 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


It was a sort of terrible childishness. But children had 
their masters. “Ah! the stick, the stick, the stern 
hand,” thought Razumov, longing for power to hurt and 
destroy. 

He was glad he had thrashed that brute. The physical 
exertion had left his body in a comfortable glow. His 
mental agitation, too, was clarified as if all the feverish- 
ness had gone out of him in a fit of outward violence. 
Together with the persisting sense of terrible danger, he 
was conscious now of a tranquil, unquenchable hate. 

He walked slower and slower. And, indeed, consider- 
ing the guest he had in his rooms, it was no wonder he 
lingered on the way. It was like harboring a pestilential 
disease that would not, perhaps, take your life, but 
would take from you all that made life worth living — a 
subtle pest that would convert earth into a hell. 

What was he doing now ? Lying on the bed as if dead, 
with the back of his hands over his eyes? Razumov 
had a morbidly vivid vision of Haldin on his bed — the 
white pillow hollowed by the head, the legs in long 
boots, the upturned feet. And in his abhorrence he 
said to himself: “I’ll kill him when I get home.” But 
he knew very well that that was of no use. The corpse 
hanging round his neck would be nearly as fatal as the 
living man. Nothing short of complete annihilation 
would do. And that was impossible. What then? 
Must one kill oneself to escape this visitation? 

Razumov’s despair was too profoundly tinged with 
hate to accept that issue. 

And yet it was despair — nothing less — at the thought 
of having to live with Haldin for an indefinite number 
of days in mortal alarm at every sound. But perhaps 
when he heard that this “bright soul” of Ziemianitch 
suffered from a drunken eclipse the fellow would take 
his infernal resignation somewhere else. And that was 
not likely on the face of it. 

Razumov thought, “I am being crushed — and I can’t 

31 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


even run away.” Other men had somewhere a corner 
of the earth — some little house in the provinces where 
they had a right to take their troubles. A material 
refuge. He had nothing. He had not even a moral 
refuge — the refuge of confidence. To whom could he go 
with this tale in all this great, great land ? 

Razumov stamped his foot, and under the soft carpet 
of snow felt the hard ground of Russia, inanimate, cold, 
inert, like a sullen and tragic mother hiding her face 
under a winding-sheet — his native soil! — his very own — 
without a fireside, without a heart! 

He cast his eyes upward and stood amazed. The 
snow had ceased to fall, and now as if by a miracle 
he saw above his head the clear, black sky of the North- 
ern winter decorated with the sumptuous fires of the 
stars. It was a canopy fit for the resplendent purity of 
the snows. 

Razumov received an almost physical impression of 
endless space and of countless millions. 

He responded to it with the readiness of a Russian 
who is born to an inheritance of space and numbers. 
Under the sumptuous immensity of the sky, the snow- 
covered, the endless forests, the frozen rivers, the plains 
of an immense country, obliterating the landmarks, the 
accidents of the ground leveling everything under its 
uniform whiteness like a monstrous blank page awaiting 
the record of an inconceivable history. It covered the 
passive land with its lives of countless people like 
Ziemianitch and its handful of agitators like this Haldin 
— murdering foolishly. 

It was a sort of sacred inertia. Razumov felt a re- 
spect for it. A voice seamed to cry within him : ‘‘Don’t 
touch it.” It was a guarantee of duration, of safety, 
while the travail of maturing destiny went on — a work 
not of revolutions with their passionate levity of action 
and their shifting impulses — but of peace. What it 
needed was not the conflicting aspirations of a people, 

32 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


but a will strong and one: it wanted not the babble of 
many voices, but a man — strong and one! 

Razumov stood on the point of conversion. He was 
fascinated by its approach, by its overpowering logic. 
For a train of thought is never false. The falsehood 
lies deep in the necessities of existence, in secret fears 
and half-formed ambitions, in the secret confidence 
combined with a secret mistrust of ourselves, in the love 
of hope and the dread of uncertain days. 

In Russia, the land of spectral ideas and disembodied 
aspirations, many brave minds have turned away at 
last from the vain and endless conflict to the one great 
historical fact of the land. They turned to autocracy 
for the peace of their patriotic conscience as a weary 
unbeliever, touched by grace, turns to the faith of his 
fathers for the blessing of spiritual rest. Like other 
Russians before him, Razumov, in conflict with himself, 
felt the touch of grace upon his forehead. 

“Haldin means disruption,” he thought to himself, 
beginning to walk again. “What is he with his indig- 
nation, with his talk of bondage — with his talk of 
God’s justice .J* All that means disruption. Better that 
thousands should suffer than that a people should be- 
come a disintegrated mass, helpless like dust in the 
wind. Obscurantism is better than the light of in- 
cendiary torches. The seed germinates in the night. 
Out of the dark soil springs the perfect plant. But a 
volcanic eruption is sterile, the ruin of the fertile ground. 
And am I, who love my country — ^who have nothing 
but that to love and put my faith in — am I to have my 
future, perhaps my usefulness, ruined by this sanguinary 
fanatic ? 

The Grace entered into Razumov. He believed now 
in the man who would come at the appointed time. 

What is the throne ? A few pieces of wood upholstered 
in velvet. But a throne is a seat of power, too. The 
form of government is the shape of a tool — an instru- 

33 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


ment. But twenty thousand bladders inflated by the 
noblest sentiments and jostling against one another in 
the air are a miserable encumbrance of space, holding 
no power, possessing no will, having nothing to give. 

He went on thus, heedless of the way, holding a dis- 
course with himself with extraordinary abundance and 
facility. Generally his phrases came to him slowly, 
after a conscious and painstaking wooing. Some su- 
perior power had inspired him with a flow of masterly 
argument, as certain converted sinners become over- 
whelmingly loquacious. 

He felt an austere exultation. 

“What are the luridly smoky lucubrations of that 
fellow to the clear grasp of my intellect?” he thought. 
“Is not this my country? Have I not got forty million 
brothers?” he asked himself, unanswerably victorious 
in the silence of his breast. And the fearful thrashing 
he had given the inanimate Ziemianitch seemed to him 
like a sign of intimate union, a pathetically severe neces- 
sity of brotherly love. “No! if I must suffer, let me 
at least suffer for my convictions, not for a crime my 
reason — my cool, superior reason — rejects.” 

He ceased to think for a moment. The silence in his 
breast was complete. But he felt a suspicious uneasi- 
ness, such as we may experience when we enter an unlight- 
ed strange place — the irrational feeling that something 
may jump upon us in the dark — the absurd dread of the 
unseen. 

Of course he was far from being a moss-grown re- 
actionary. Everything was not for the best. Despotic 
bureaucracy . . . abuses . . . corruption . . . and so on. 
Capable men were wanted. Enlightened intelligences. 
Devoted hearts. But absolute power should be pre- 
served — the tool ready for the man — for the great au- 
tocrat of the future. Razumov believed in him. The 
logic of history made him unavoidable. The state of 
the people demanded him. “What else?” he asked 

34 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


himself, ardently, “could move all that mass in one 
direction? Nothing could. Nothing but a single will.” 

He was persuaded that he was sacrificing his personal 
longings of liberalism — rejecting the attractive error for 
the stern Russian truth. “That’s patriotism,” he ob- 
served, mentally, and added, “There’s no stopping mid- 
way on that road,” and then remarked to himself, “I 
am not a coward.” 

And again there was a dead silence in Razumov’s 
breast. He walked with lowered head, making room 
for no one. He walked slowly, and his thoughts, return- 
ing, spoke within him with solemn slowness. 

“What is this Haldin? And what am I? Only two 
grains of sand. But a great mountain is made up of just 
such insignificant grains. And the death of a man or of 
many men is an insignificant thing. Yet we combat 
a contagious pestilence. Do I want his death ? No! I 
would save him if I could — ^but no one can do that — he is 
the withered member that must be cut off. If I must 
perish through him, let me at least not perish with him, 
and associated against my will with his somber folly 
that understands nothing either of men or things. Why 
should I leave a false memory?” 

It passed through his mind that there was no one in 
the world who cared what sort of memory he left behind 
him. He exclaimed to himself instantly : “ Perish vainly 
for a falsehood! . . . what a miserable fate!” 

He was now in a more animated part of the town. He 
did not remark the crash of two colliding sledges close 
to the curb. The driver of one bellowed tearfully at his 
fellow. 

“Oh! Thou vile wretch!” 

This hoarse yell, let out nearly in his ear, disturbed 
Razumov. He shook his head impatiently and went on 
looking straight before him. Suddenly on the snow, 
stretched on his back right across his path, he saw 
Haldin, solid, distinct, real, with his inverted hands over 

35 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


his eyes, clad in a brown, close-fitting coat and long boots. 
He was lying out of the way a little, as though he had 
selected that place on purpose. The snow round him 
was untrodden. 

This hallucination had such a solidity of aspect that 
the first movement of Razumov was to reach for his 
pocket to assure himself that the key of his rooms was 
there. But he checked the impulse with a disdainful 
curve of his lips. He understood. His thought, con- 
centrated intensely on the figure left lying on his bed, 
had culminated in this extraordinary illusion of the 
sight. Razumov tackled the phenomenon calmly. 
With a stem face, without a check, and gazing far beyond 
the vision, he walked on, experiencing nothing but a 
slight tightening of the chest. After passing, he turned 
his head for a glance and saw only the unbroken track of 
his footsteps over the place where the breast of the 
phantom had been lying. 

Razumov walked on, and after a little time whispered 
his wonder to himself. 

“Exactly as if alive! Seemed to breathe! And right 
in my way, too! I have had an extraordinary ex- 
perience.” 

He made a few steps and muttered through his set 
teeth : 

“I shall give him up.” 

Then for some twenty yards or more all was blank. 
He wrapped his cloak closer round him. He pulled his 
cap well forward over his eyes. 

“Betray. A great word. What is betrayal? They 
talk of a man betraying his country, his friends, his 
sweetheart. There must be a moral bond first. All a 
man can betray is his conscience. And how is my con- 
science engaged here; by what bond of common faith, of 
common conviction am I obliged to let that fanatical 
idiot drag me down with him? On the contrary, every 
obligation of true courage is the other way.” 

36 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


Razumov looked round from under his cap. 

“What can the prejudice of the world reproach me 
with? Have I provoked his confidence? No! Have 
I by a single word, look, or gesture given him reason to 
suppose that I accepted his trust in me ? No I It is true 
that I consented to go and see his Ziemianitch. Well, I 
have been to see him. And I broke a stick on his back, 
too — the brute.” 

Something seemed to turn over in his head bringing 
uppermost a singularly hard, clear facet of his brain. 

“It would be better, however,” he said to himself, 
with a quite different mental accent, “to keep that 
circumstance altogether to myself.” 

He had passed beyond the turn leading to his lodgings, 
and had reached a wide and fashionable street. Some 
shops were still open and all the restaurants. Lights 
fell on the pavement where men in expensive fur coats, 
with here and there the elegant figure of a woman, walked 
with an air of leisure. Razumov looked at them with 
the contempt of an austere believer for the frivolous 
crowd. It was the world — ^those officers, dignitaries, 
men of fashion, officials, members of the Yacht Club. 
The event of the morning affected them all. What 
would they say if they knew what this student in a 
cloak was going to do ? 

“ Not one of them is capable of feeling and thinking as 
deeply as I can. How many of them could accomplish 
an act of conscience?” 

Razumov lingered in the well-lighted street. He was 
firmly decided. Indeed, it could hardly be called a de- 
cision. He had simply discovered what he had meant 
to do all along. And yet he felt the need of some other 
mind’s sanction. 

With something resembling anguish he said to himself: 

“ I want to be understood.” The universal aspiration 
with all its profound and melancholy meaning assailed 
heavily Razumov, who, among eighty millions of his 

37 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 

kith and kin, had no heart to which he could open him- 
self. 

The attorney was not to be thought of. He despised 
the little agent of chicane too much. One could not go 
and lay one’s conscience before the policeman at the 
-corner. Neither was Razumov anxious to go to the 
chief of his district’s police — a common-looking person 
whom he used to see sometimes in the street in a shabby 
uniform and with a smouldering cigarette stuck to his 
lower lip. “He would begin by locking me up most 
probably. At any rate, he is certain to get excited and 
create an awful commotion,’’ thought Razumov, prac- 
tically. 

An act of conscience must be done with outward 
dignity. 

Razumov longed desperately for a word of advice, for 
moral support. Who knows what true loneliness is — 
not the conventional word, but the naked terror? To 
the lonely themselves it wears a mask. The most 
miserable outcast hugs some memory or some illusion. 
Now and then a fatal conjunction of events may lift 
the veil for an instant. For an instant only. No 
human being could bear a steady view of moral solitude 
without going mad. 

Razumov had reached that point of vision. To escape 
from it he embraced for a whole minute the delirious 
purpose of rushing to his lodgings and flinging himself 
on his knees by the side of the bed with the dark figure 
stretched on it, to pour out a full confession in passion- 
ate words that would stir the whole being of that man to 
its innermost depths; that would end in embraces and 
tears; in an incredible fellowship of souls — such as the 
world had never seen. It was sublime! 

Inwardly he wept and trembled already. But to 
the casual eyes that were cast upon him he was aware 
that he appeared as a tranquil student in a cloak, out 
for a leisurely stroll. He noted, too, the sidelong, brill- 

33 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


iant glance of a pretty woman — with a delicate head, 
and covered in the hairy skins of wild beasts down to 
her feet, like a frail and beautiful savage — which rested 
for a moment with a sort of mocking tenderness on the 
deep abstraction of that good-looking young man. 

Suddenly Razumov stood still. The glimpse of a 
passing gray whisker caught and lost in the same in- 
stant had evoked the complete image of Prince K 

the man who once had pressed his hand as no other 
man had pressed it — a faint but lingering pressure like 
a secret sign, like a half-unwilling caress. 

And Razumov marveled at himself. Why did he not 
think of him before! 

“A senator, a dignitary, a great personage, the very 
man — He!” 

A strange, softening emotion came over Razumov — 
made his knees shake a little. He repressed it with a 
new-born austerity. All that sentiment was pernicious 
nonsense. He couldn’t be quick enough; and when he 
got into a sledge he shouted to the driver: 

“To the K Palace! Get on — you! Fly!” 

The startled moujik, bearded up to the very whites of 
his eyes, answered, obsequiously; 

“I hear, your high nobility.” 

It was lucky for Razumov that Prince K was not 

a man of timid character. On the day of Mr. de P ’s 

murder an extreme alarm and despondency prevailed 
in the high official spheres. 

Prince K , sitting sadly alone in his study, was told 

by his alarmed servants that a mysterious young man had 
forced his way into the hall, refused to tell his name and 
the nature of his business, and would not move from 
there till he had seen his Excellency in private. Instead 
of locking himself up and telephoning for the police, 
as nine out of ten high personages would have done 
that evening, the Prince gave way to curiosity and 
came quietly to the door of his study. 

4 39 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


In the hall, the front door standing wide open, he 
recognized at once Razumov, pale as death, his eyes 
blazing, and surrounded by perplexed lackeys. 

The Prince was vexed beyond measure, and even 
indignant. But his humane instinct and a subtle sense 
of self-respect could not allow him to let this young 
man be thrown out into the street by base menials. 
He retreated unseen into his room, and after a little 
rang his bell. Razumov heard in the hall an ominously 
raised, harsh voice saying, somewhere far away: 

“Show the gentleman in here.” 

Razumov walked in without a tremor. He felt him- 
self invulnerable — raised far above the shallowness of 
common judgment. Though he saw the Prince looking 
at him with black displeasure, the lucidity of his mind, 
of which he was very conscious, gave him an extraor- 
dinary assurance. He was not asked to sit down. 

Half an hour later they appeared in the hall together. 
All the lackeys stood up, and the Prince, moving with 
difficulty on his gouty feet, was helped into his furs. 
The carriage had been ordered before. When the great 
double door was flung open with a crash, Razumov, who 
had been standing silent with a lost gaze but with every 
faculty intensely on the alert, heard the Prince’s voice : 

“Your arm, young man.” 

The mobile, superficial mind of the ex-guard’s officer, 
man of showy missions, experienced in nothing but the 
arts of gallant intrigue and worldly success, had been 
equally impressed by the more obvious difficulties of 
such a situation and by Razumov’ s quiet dignity in 
stating them. 

He had said: “ No. Upon the whole, I can’t condemn 
the step you ventured to take by coming to me with 
your story. It is not an affair for police understrappers. 
The greatest importance is attached to. . . . Set your 
mind at rest. I shall see you through this most extraor- 
dinary and difficult situation.” 

40 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


Then the Prince rose to ring the bell, and Razumov, 
making a short bow, said, with deference: 

“ I have trusted my instinct. A young man having no 
claim upon anybody in the world has, in an hour of trial 
involving his deepest political convictions, turned to an 
illustrious Russian — ^that’s all.” 

The Prince had exclaimed, hastily: 

“You have done well.” 

In the carriage — it was a small brougham on sleigh 
runners — Razumov broke the silence in a voice that 
trembled slightly. 

“My gratitude surpasses the greatness of my pre- 
sumption.” 

He gasped, feeling unexpectedly in the dark a mo- 
mentary pressure on his arm. 

“You have done well,” repeated the Prince. 

When the carriage stopped, the Prince murmured to 
Razumov, who had never ventured a single question : 

“The house of General T .” 

In the middle of the snow-covered roadway blazed a 
great bonfire. Some Cossacks, the bridles of their horses 
over the arm, were warming themselves around. Two 
sentries stood at the door, several gendarmes lounged 
under the great carriage gateway, and, on the first-floor 
landing, two orderlies rose and stood at attention. 
Razumov walked at the Prince’s elbow. 

A surprising quantity of hothouse plants in pots cum- 
bered the floor of the anteroom. Servants came forward. 
A young man in civilian clothes arrived hurriedly, was 
whispered to, bowed low and, exclaiming zealously, 
“Certainly — ^this minute,” fled within somewhere. The 
Prince signed to Razumov. 

They passed through a suite of reception-rooms all 
barely lit and one of them prepared for dancing. The 
wife of the General had put off her party. An at- 
mosphere of consternation pervaded the place. But 
the General’s own room, with heavy, somber hangings, 

41 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


two massive desks, and deep arm-chairs, had all the 
lights turned on. The footman shut the door behind 
them and they waited. 

There was a coal fire in an English grate — Razumov 
had never before seen such a fire; and the silence of the 
room was like the silence of the grave — perfect, measure- 
less, for even the clock on the mantelpiece made no 
sound. Filling a corner, on a black pedestal, stood a 
quarter-life-size smooth-limbed bronze of an adolescent 
figure running. The Prince observed in an undertone: 

“Spontini’s ‘Flight of Youth.’ Exquisite.” 

“Admirable,” assented Razumov, faintly. 

They said nothing more after this, the Prince silent 
with his grand air, Razumov staring at the bronze. He 
was worried by a sensation resembling the gnawing of 
hunger. 

He did not turn when he heard an inner door fly open 
and a quick footstep, muffled, on the carpet. 

The Prince’s voice immediately exclaimed, thick with 
excitement : 

“We have got him — ce miserable, A worthy young 
man came to me — No! It’s incredible. ...” 

Razumov held his breath before the bronze as if ex- 
pecting a crash. Behind his back a voice he had never 
heard before insisted politely: 

“Maw asseyez-vous done'' 

The Prince almost shrieked: “Maw, comprenez-vous, 
mon cher! L' ass as sin! the murderer — we have got 

him. . . .” 

Razumov spun round. The General’s smooth, big 
cheeks rested on the stiff collar of his uniform. He 
must have been already looking at Razumov, because 
that last saw the pale-blue eyes fastened on him coldly. 

The Prince from a chair waved an impressive hand. 

“This is the most honorable young man whom 
Providence itself . . . Mr. Razumov.” 

The General acknowledged the introduction by frown- 
42 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 

ing at Razumov, who did not make the slightest move- 
ment. 

Sitting down before his desk, the General listened with 
compressed lips. It was impossible to detect any sign 
of emotion on his face. 

Razumov watched the immobility of the fleshy profile. 
But it lasted only a moment, till the Prince had finished; 
and when the General turned to the providential young 
man, his florid complexion, the blue, unbelieving eyes, 
and the bright white flash of an automatic smile had 
an air of jovial, careless cruelty. He expressed no won- 
der at the extraordinary story — no pleasure or excitement 
— no incredulity either. He betrayed no sentiment what- 
ever. Only with a politeness almost deferential sug- 
gested that “the bird might have flown while Mr. — Mr. 
Razumov was running about the streets.” 

Razumov advanced to the middle of the room and 
said: “The door is locked and I have the key in my 
pocket.” 

His loathing for the man was intense. It had come 
upon him so unawares that he felt he had not kept it out 
of his voice. The General looked up at him thought- 
fully, and Razumov grinned. 

All this went over the head of Prince K , seated 

in a deep arm-chair, very tired and impatient. 

“A student called Haldin,” said the General, thought- 
fully. 

Razumov ceased to grin. 

“That is his name,” he said, unnecessarily loud. 
“Victor Victorovitch Haldin — a student.” 

The General shifted his position a little. 

“How is he dressed? Would you have the goodness 
to tell me?” 

Razumov angrily described Haldin’ s clothing in a few 
jerky words. The General stared all the time, then, 
addressing the Prince: 

“We were not without some indications,” he said 
43 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


in French. “A good woman who was in the street 
described to us somebody wearing a dress of the sort 
as the thrower of the second bomb. We have detained 
her at the Secretariat, and every one in a Tcherkess 
coat we could lay our hands on has been brought to 
her to look at. She kept on signing herself and shaking 
her head at them. It was exasperating. ...” 

He turned to Razumov, and in Russian, with friendly 
reproach : 

“Take a chair, Mr. Razumov — do. Why are you 
standing?” 

Razumov sat down carelessly and looked at the General. 

“This goggle-eyed imbecile understands nothing,” he 
thought. 

The Prince began to speak loftily. 

“Mr. Razumov is a young man of conspicuous abilities. 
I have it at heart that his future should not ...” 

“Certainly,” interrupted the General, with a move- 
ment of the hand. “Has he any weapons on him, do 
you think, Mr. Razumov?” 

The General employed a gentle, musical voice. 
Razumov answered with suppressed irritation: 

“No. But my razors are lying about — you under- 
stand.” 

The General lowered his head approvingly. 

“Precisely.” 

Then to the Prince, explaining courteously: 

“We want that bird alive. It will be the devil if we 
can’t make him sing a little before we are done with 
him.” 

The grave-like silence of the room, with its mute 
clock, fell upon the polite modulations of this terrible 
phrase. The Prince, hidden in the chair, made no 
sound. 

The General unexpectedly developed a thought. 

“Fidelity to menaced institutions on which depend 
the safety of a throne and of a people is no child’s play. 

44 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


We know that, mon Prince^ and — tenez'' he went on, 
with a sort of flattering harshness. “Mr. Razumov 
here begins to understand that, too.” 

His eyes, which he turned upon Razumov, seemed to 
be starting out of his head. This grotesqueness of aspect 
no longer shocked Razumov. He said, with gloomy 
conviction : 

“Haldin will never speak.” 

“That remains to be seen,” muttered the General. 

“I am certain,” insisted Razumov. “A man like 
this never speaks. ... Do you imagine that I am here 
from fear,” he added, violently. He felt ready to stand 
by his opinion of Haldin to the last extremity. 

“Certainly not,” protested the General, with great 
simplicity of tone. “And I don’t mind telling you, Mr. 
Razumov, that if he had not come with his tale to such 
a stanch and loyal Russian as you he would have dis- 
appeared like a stone in the water . . . which would have 
had a detestable effect,” he added, with a bright, cruel 
smile under his stony stare. “So, you see, there can 
be no suspicion of any fear here.” 

The Prince intervened, looking at Razumov round 
the back of the arm-chair. 

“ Nobody doubts the moral soundness of your action. 
Be at ease in that respect, pray.” 

He turned to the General uneasily. 

“That’s why I am here. You may be surprised why 
I should . . .” 

The General hastened to interrupt. 

“Not at all. Extremely natural. You saw the im- 
portance ...” 

“Yes,” broke in the Prince. “And I venture to ask 
insistently that mine and Mr. Razumov’s intervention 
should not become public. He is a young man of prom- 
ise — of remarkable aptitudes.” 

“I haven’t a doubt of it,” murmured the General. 
“He inspires confidence.” 


45 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


“ All sorts of pernicious views are so widespread nowa- 
days — they taint such unexpected quarters — that, mon- 
strous as it seems, he might suffer. . . . His studies. . . . 
His . . 

The General, with his elbows on the desk, took his 
head between his hands. 

“Yes. Yes. I am thinking it out. . . . How long is 
it since you left him at your rooms, Mr. Razumov?” 

Razumov mentioned the hour which nearly corre- 
sponded with the time of his distracted flight from the 
big slum house. He had made up his mind to keep 
Ziemianitch out of the affair completely. To mention 
him at all would mean imprisonment for the “bright 
soul,” perhaps cruel floggings, and in the end a journey 
into Siberia in chains. Razumov, who had beaten 
Ziemianitch, felt for him now a vague, remorseful 
tenderness. 

The General, giving way for the first time to his secret 
sentiments, exclaimed, contemptuously: 

“And you say he came in to make you this confidence 
like this — for nothing — d propos des hottes.'' 

Razumov felt danger in the air. The merciless sus- 
picion of despotism had spoken openly at last. Sudden 
fear sealed Razumov’s lips. The silence of the room 
resembled now the silence of a deep dungeon, where 
time does not count and a suspect person is sometimes 
forgotten forever. But the Prince came to the rescue. 

“Providence itself has led the wretch in a moment 
of mental aberration to seek Mr. Razumov on the 
strength of some old, utterly misinterpreted exchange 
of ideas — some sort of idle speculative conversation — 
months ago, I am told, and completely forgotten till 
now by Mr. Razumov.” 

“Mr. Razumov,” queried the General, meditatively, 
after a short silence, “do you often indulge in specula- 
tive conversation?” 

“No, Excellency,” answered Razumov, coolly, in a 
46 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


sudden access of self-confidence. “I am a man of deep 
convictions. Crude opinions are in the air. They are 
not always worth combating. But even the silent con- 
tempt of a serious mind may be misinterpreted by head- 
long utopists.” 

The General stared from between his hands. Prince 
K murmured: 

“A serious young man. Un esprit superieur^ 

“I see that, mon cher Prince,'' said the General. 
“Mr. Razumov is quite safe with me. I am interested 
in him. He has, it seems, the great and useful quality 
of inspiring confidence. What I was wondering at is 
why the other should mention anything at all — I mean 
even the bare fact alone — if his object was only to obtain 
temporary shelter for a few hours. For, after all, noth- 
ing was easier than to say nothing about it unless, in- 
deed, he were trying, under a crazy misapprehension of 
your true sentiments, to enlist your assistance — eh, Mr. 
Razumov?” 

It seemed to Razumov that the floor was moving 
slightly. This grotesque man in a tight uniform was 
terrible. It was right that he should be terrible. 

“I can see what your Excellency has in your mind. 
But I can only answer that I don’t know why.” 

“ I have nothing in my mind,” murmured the General, 
with gentle surprise. 

“I am his prey — his helpless prey,” thought Razu- 
mov. The fatigues and the disgusts of that afternoon, 
the need to forget, the fear which he could not keep off, 
reawakened his hate for Haldin. 

“Then I can’t help your Excellency. I don’t know 
what he meant. I only know there was a moment when 
I wished to kill him. There was also a moment when I 
wished myself dead. I said nothing. I was overcome. 
I provoked no confidence — I asked for no explanations.” 

Razumov seemed beside himself; but his mind was 
lucid. It was really a calculated outburst. 

47 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


“It is rather a pity/’ the General said, “that you did 
not. Don’t you know at all what he means to do?’’ 

Razumov calmed down and saw an opening there. 

“ He told me he was in hopes that a sledge would meet 
him about half an hour after midnight at the seventh 
lamp-post on the left from the upper end of Karabelnaya. 
At any rate, he meant to be there at that time. He did 
not even ask for a change of clothes.’’ 

Ah,voila!” said the General, turning to Prince K 

with an air of satisfaction. “There is a way to keep 
your protege, Mr. Razumov, quite clear of any connec- 
tion with the actual arrest. We shall be ready for that 
gentleman in Karabelnaya.” 

The Prince expressed his gratitude. There was real 
emotion in his voice. Razumov, motionless, silent, sat 
staring at the carpet. The General turned to him. 

“Half an hour after midnight. Till then we have to 
depend on you, Mr. Razumov. You don’t think he is 
likely to change his purpose?” 

“How can I tell,” said Razumov. “Those men are 
not of the sort that ever changes its purpose.” 

“What men do you mean?” 

“Fanatical lovers of liberty in general. Liberty with 
a capital L, Excellency. Liberty that means nothing 
precise. Liberty in whose name crimes are committed.” 

The General murmured: 

“I detest rebels of every kind. I can’t help it. It’s 
my nature!” 

He clenched a fist and shook it, drawing back his arm. 
“They shall be destroyed, then.” 

“They have made a sacrifice of their lives before- 
hand,” said Razumov, with malicious pleasure, and 
looking the General straight in the face. “If Haldin 
does change his purpose to-night, you may depend on 
it that it will not be to save his life by flight in some 
other way. He would have thought then of something 
else to attempt. But that is not likely.” 

48 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


The General repeated as if to himself: “They shall 
be destroyed.” 

Razumov assumed an impenetrable expression. The 
Prince exclaimed: 

“What a terrible necessity!” The General’s arm was 
lowered slowly. 

“One comfort there is. That brood leaves no pos- 
terity. I've always said it; one effort, pitiless, per- 
sistent, steady — and we are done with them forever.” 

Razumov thought to himself that this man, intrusted 
with so much arbitrary power, must have believed what 
he said, or else he could not have gone on bearing the 
responsibility. 

The General repeated again, with extreme animosity: 

“I detest rebels. These subversive minds! These 
intellectual debauches! My existence has been built 
on fidelity. It’s a feeling. To defend it I am ready to 
lay down my life — and even my honor — if that were 
needed. But pray tell me what honor can there be as 
against rebels — against people that deny God Himself — 
perfect unbelievers ? Brutes! It is horrible to think of.” 

During this tirade Razumov, facing the General, had 

nodded slightly twice. Prince K , standing on one 

side with his grand air, murmured, casting up his eyes: 

^^miasr 

Then, lowering his glance and with great decision, 
declared : 

“This young man. General, is perfectly fit to appre- 
hend the bearing of your memorable words.” 

The General’s whole expression changed from dull re- 
sentment to perfect urbanity. 

“ I would ask now Mr. Razumov,” he said, “to return 
to his home. Note that I don’t ask Mr. Razumov 
whether he has justified his absence to his guest. No 
doubt he did this sufficiently. But I don’t ask. Mr. 
Razumov inspires confidence. It is a great gift. I only 
suggest that a more prolonged absence might awaken 

49 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


the criminars suspicions and induce him, perhaps, to 
change his plans.” 

He rose and with scrupulous courtesy escorted his 
visitors to the anteroom encumbered with flower-pots. 

Razumov parted with the Prince at the corner of a 
street. In the carriage he had listened to speeches 
where natural sentiment struggled with caution. Evi- 
dently the Prince was afraid of encouraging any hopes 
of future intercourse. But there was a touch of tender- 
ness in the voice uttering in the dark the guarded 
general phrases of good-will. And the Prince said: 

“I have perfect confidence in you, Mr. Razumov.” 

‘‘They all, it seems, have confidence in me,” thought 
Razumov, dully. He had an indulgent contempt for 
the man sitting shoulder to shoulder with him in the con- 
fined space. Probably he was afraid of scenes with his 
wife. She was said to be proud and violent. 

It seemed to him bizarre that secrecy should play such 
a large part in the comfort and safety of lives. But he 
wanted to put the Prince’s mind at ease; and with a 
proper amount of emphasis he said that, being conscious 
of some small abilities and confident in his power of work, 
he trusted his future to his own exertions. He pro- 
tested his gratitude for the helping hand. Such dan- 
gerous situations did not occur twice in the course of one 
life, he added. 

‘‘And you have met it with a firmness of mind and 
correctness of feeling' which give me a high idea of your 
worth,” the Prince said, solemnly. “You have now 
only to persevere — to persevere.” 

On getting out on the pavement Razumov saw an un- 
gloved hand extended to him through the lowered win- 
dow of the brougham. It detained his own in its grasp 
for a moment, while the light of a street lamp fell upon 
the Prince’s long face and old-fashioned gray whiskers. 

“ I hope you are perfectly reassured now as to the con- 
sequences. ...” 

SO 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 

“After what your Excellency has condescended to do 
for me, I can only rely on my conscience.” 

“Adieu,” said the whiskered head with feeling. 

Razumov bowed. The brougham glided away with 
a slight swish in the snow — he was alone on the edge of 
the pavement. 

He said to himself that there was nothing to think 
about, and began walking toward his home. 

He walked quietly. It was a common experience to 
walk thus home to bed after an evening spent somewhere 
with his fellows or in the cheaper seats of a theater. 
After he had gone a little way the familiarity of things 
got hold of him. Nothing was changed. There was the 
familiar corner, and when he turned it he saw the 
familiar dim light of the provision shop kept by a German 
woman. There were loaves of stale bread, bunches of 
onions, and strings of sausages behind the small window- 
panes. They were closing it. The sickly, lame fellow 
whom he knew so well by sight staggered out into the 
snow embracing a large shutter. 

Nothing would change. There was the familiar gate- 
way yawning black with feeble glimmers marking the 
arches of the different staircases. 

The sense of life’s continuity depended on trifling 
bodily impressions. The trivialities of daily existence 
were an armor for the soul. And this thought rein- 
forced the inward quietness of Razumov as he began to 
climb the stairs familiar to his feet in the dark, with his 
hand on the familiar clammy banister. The exceptional 
could not prevail against the material contacts which 
make one day resemble another. To-morrow would be 
like yesterday. 

It was only on the stage that the unusual was out- 
wardly acknowledged. 

“I suppose,” thought Razumov, “that if I had made 
up my mind to blow out my brains on the landing I 
would be going up these stairs as quietly as I am doing 

SI 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


it now. What’s a man to do ? What must be must be. 
Extraordinary things do happen. But when they have 
happened they are done with. Thus, too, when the 
mind is made up. That question is done with. And 
the daily concerns, the familiarities of our thought 
swallow it up — and the life goes on as before, with its 
mysterious and secret sides quite out of sight, as they 
should be. Life is a public thing.” 

Razumov unlocked his door and took the key out; 
entered very quietly and bolted the door behind him 
carefully. 

Rethought: “He hears me.” And after bolting the 
door he stood still, holding his breath. There was not a 
sound. He crossed the bare outer room, stepping de- 
liberately in the darkness. Entering the other, he felt 
all over his table for the match-box. The silence, but 
for the groping of his hand, was profound. Could the 
fellow be sleeping so soundly? 

He struck a light and looked at the bed. Haldin was 
lying on his back as before, only both his hands were 
under his head. His eyes were open. He stared at 
the ceiling. 

Razumov held the match up. He saw the clear-cut 
features, the firm chin, the white forehead, and the top- 
knot of fair hair against the white pillow. There he 
was, lying flat on his back. Razumov thought sudden- 
ly, ” I have walked over his chest.” 

He continued to stare till the match burned itself out ; 
then struck another and lit the lamp in silence without 
looking toward the bed any more. He had turned his 
back on it, and was hanging his coat on a peg when 
he heard Haldin sigh profoundly, then ask in a tired 
voice : 

‘‘Well! And what have you arranged?” 

The emotion was so great that Razumov was glad 
to put his hands against the wall. A diabolic impulse 
to say, ‘‘I have given you up to the police,” frightened 

52 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


him exceedingly. But he did not say that. He said, 
without turning round, in a muffled voice: 

“It’s done.” 

Again he heard Haldin sigh. He walked to the table, 
sat down with the lamp before him, and only then looked 
toward the bed. 

In the distant corner of the large room, far away from 
the lamp, which was small and provided with a very 
thick china shade, Haldin appeared like a dark and 
elongated shape — rigid with the immobility of death. 
This body seemed to have less substance than its own 
phantom walked over by Razumov in the street white 
with snow. It was more alarming in its shadowy, per- 
sistent reality, than the distinct but vanishing illusion. 

Haldin was heard again. 

“You must have had a walk — such a walk, . . .’’he 
murmured, deprecatingly. “This weather . . 

Razumov answered with energy: 

“Horrible walk. ... A nightmare of a walk.” 

He shuddered audibly. Haldin sighed once more, 
then: 

“And so you have seen Ziemianitch — brother?” 

“I’ve seen him.” 

Razumov, remembering the time he had spent with 
the Prince, thought it prudent to add: “I had to wait 
some time.” 

“A character — eh? It’s extraordinary what a sense 
of the necessity of freedom there is in that man. And 
he has sayings, too — simple, to the point, such as only 
the people can invent in their rough sagacity. A char- 
acter that ...” 

“I, you understand, haven’t had much opportuni- 
ty . . .” Razumov muttered, through his teeth. 

Haldin continued to stare at the ceiling. 

“You see, brother, I have been a good deal in that 
house of late. I used to take there books — leaflets. 
Not a few of the poor people who live there can read. 

53 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


And, you see, the guests for the feast of freedom must 
be sought for in byways and hedges. The truth is, I 
have almost lived in that house of late. I slept some- 
times in the stable. There is a stable ...” 

“That’s where I had my interview with Ziemianitch,” 
interrupted Razumov, gently. A mocking spirit entered 
into him, and he added: “ It was satisfactory, in a sense. 
I came away from it much relieved.” 

“Ah! he’s a fellow,” went on Haldin, talking slowly 
at the ceiling. “I came to know him in that way, you 
see. For some weeks now, ever since I resigned my- 
self to do what had to be done, I tried to isolate myself. 
I gave up my rooms. What was the good of exposing 
a decent widow woman to the risk of being worried out 
of her mind by the police ? I gave up seeing any of our 
comrades. ...” 

Razumov drew to himself a half-sheet of paper and 
began to trace lines on it with a pencil. 

“Upon my word,” he thought, angrily, “he seems 
to have thought of everybody’s safety but mine.” 

Haldin was talking on. 

“This morning — ah, this morning! — that was differ- 
ent. How can I explain to you? Before the deed was 
done I wandered at night and lay hid in the day, think- 
ing it out, and I felt restful. Sleepless but restful. 
What was there for me to torment myself about? But 
this morning — after! Then it was that I became rest- 
less. I could not have stopped in that big house full 
of misery. The miserable of this world can’t give 
you peace. Then, when that silly caretaker began to 
shout, I said to myself, ‘There is a young man in 
this town head and shoulders above common preju- 
dices.’ ” 

“Is he laughing at me?” Razumov asked himself, 
going on with his aimless drawing of triangles and 
squares. And suddenly he thought: “My behavior 
must appear to him strange. Should he take fright at 

54 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


my manner and rush off somewhere I shall be undone 
completely. That infernal General ...” 

He dropped the pencil and turned abruptly toward 
the bed with the shadowy figure extended full length 
on it — so much more indistinct than the one over whose 
breast he had walked without faltering. Was this, too, 
a phantom? 

The silence had lasted a long time. “He is no longer 
here,” was the thought against which Razumov struggled 
desperately, quite frightened at its absurdity. ‘‘He is 
already gone and this . . . only ...” 

He could resist no longer. He sprang to his feet, 
saying aloud: ‘‘I am intolerably anxious,” and in a 
few headlong strides stood by the side of the bed. His 
hand fell lightly on Haldin’s shoulder, and directly he 
felt its reality he was beset by an insane temptation to 
grip that exposed throat and squeeze the breath otit of 
that body, lest it should escape his custody, leaving only 
a phantom behind. 

Haldin did not stir a limb, but his overshadowed eyes, 
moving a little, gazed upward at Razumov with wistful 
gratitude for this manifestation of feeling. 

Razumov turned away and strode up and down the 
room. ‘‘It would have been possibly a kindness,” he 
muttered to himself, and was appalled by the nature of 
that apology for a murderous intention his mind had 
found somewhere within him. And all the same he 
could not give it up. He became lucid about it. ‘‘ What 
can he expect?” he thought. ‘‘The halter — in the end. 
And I . . .” 

This argument was interrupted by Haldin’s voice. 

‘‘ Why be anxious for me ? They can kill my body but 
they cannot exile my soul from this world. I tell you 
what — I believe in this world so much that I cannot con- 
ceive eternity otherwise than as a very long life. That 
is, perhaps, the reason I am so ready to die.” 

“H’m,” muttered Razumov, and, biting his lower lip, 

5 55 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


he continued to walk up and down and to carry on his 
strange argument. 

Yes, to a man in such a situation — of course it would 
be an act of kindness. The question, however, is not 
how to be kind, but how to be firm. He was a slippery 
customer . . . 

“I, too, Victor Victorovitch, believe in this world of 
ours,” he said, with force. “I, too, while I live . . . 
But you seem determined to haunt it. You can’t 
seriously mean ...” 

The voice of the motionless Haldin began : 

‘‘Haunt it! Truly, the oppressors of thought which 
quickens the world, the destroyers of souls which aspire 
to perfection of human dignity, they shall be haunted. 
As to the destroyers of my mere body, I have forgiven 
them beforehand.” 

Razumov had stopped, apparently to listen, but at 
the same time he was observing his own sensations. 
He was vexed with himself for attaching so much im- 
portance to what Haldin said. 

‘‘The fellow’s mad,” he thought, firmly, but this 
opinion did not mollify him toward Haldin. It was a 
particularly impudent form of lunacy, and, when it got 
loose in the sphere of public life of a country, it was 
obviously the duty of every good citizen . . . 

This train of thought broke off short there and was 
succeeded by a paroxysm of silent hatred toward Hal- 
din, so intense that Razumov hastened to speak at 
random. 

“Yes, eternity, of course. I, too, can’t very well 
represent it to myself. ... I imagine it, however, as 
something quiet and dull. There would be nothing un- 
expected — don’t you see? The element of time would 
be wanting.” 

He pulled out his watch and gazed at it. Haldin 
turned over on his side and looked on intently. 

Razumov got frightened at this movement. A slip- 
56 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


pery customer, this fellow with a phantom. It was not 
midnight yet. He hastened on. 

“And unfathomable mysteries! Can you conceive 
secret places in eternity? Impossible. Whereas life is 
full of them. There are secrets of birth, for instance. 
One carries them on to the grave. There is something 
comical . . . but never mind. And there are secret 
motives of conduct. A man’s most open actions have a 
secret side to them. That is interesting and so un- 
fathomable ! For instance, a man goes out of a room for 
a walk. Nothing more trivial in appearance. And yet 
it may be momentous. He comes back — he has seen, 
perhaps, a drunken brute, taken particular notice of the 
snow on the ground — and, behold, he is no longer the 
same man. The most unlikely things have a secret 
power over one’s thoughts — ^the gray whiskers of a par- 
ticular person — the goggle eyes of another.’’ 

Razumov’s forehead was moist. He took a turn or 
two in the room, his head low and smiling to himself 
viciously. 

“Have you ever reflected on the power of goggle eyes 
and gray whiskers? Excuse me. You seem to think I 
must be crazy to talk in this vein at such a time. But I 
am not talking lightly. I have seen instances. It has 
happened to me once to be talking to a man whose fate 
was affected by physical facts of that kind. And the 
man did not know it. Of course, it was a case of con- 
science, but the material facts such as these brought 
about the solution. . . . And you tell me, Victor 
Victorovitch, not to be anxious! Why! I am respon- 
sible for you,’’ Razumov almost shrieked. 

He avoided with difficulty a burst of Mephistophelian 
laughter. Haldin, very pale, raised himself on his 
elbow. 

“And the surprises of life,’’ went on Razumov, after 
glancing at the other uneasily. “Just consider their 
astonishing nature. A mysterious impulse induces you 

57 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


to come here. I don’t say you have done wrong. In- 
deed, from a certain point of view you could not have 
done better. You might have gone to a man with af- 
fections and family ties. You have such ties yourself. 
A.S to me, you know I have been brought up in an 
educational institute where they did not give us enough 
to eat. To talk of affection in such a connection — you 
perceive yourself. ... As to ties, the only ties I have 
in the world are social. I must get acknowledged in 
some way before I can act at all. I sit here working . . . 
And don’t you think I am working for progress, too? 
I’ve got to find my own ideas of the true way. . . . 
Pardon me,” continued Razumov, after drawing breath, 
and with a short, throaty laugh, “but I haven’t inherited 
a revolutionary inspiration together with a resemblance 
from an uncle.” 

He looked again at his watch, and noticed with sicken- 
ing disgust that there were yet a good many minutes 
to midnight. He tore watch and chain off his waist- 
coat and laid them on the table well in the circle of 
bright lamplight. Haldin, reclining on his elbow, did 
not stir. Razumov was made uneasy by this attitude. 
‘‘What move is he meditating over so quietly?” he 
thought. “He must be prevented. I must keep on 
talking to him.” 

He raised his voice. 

“You are a son, a brother, a nephew, a cousin — I 
don’t know what — to no end of people. I am just a 
man. Here I stand before you. A man with a mind. 
Did it ever occur to you how a man who had never 
heard a word of warm affection or praise in his life 
would think on matters on which you would think first 
with or against your class, your domestic tradition — 
your fireside prejudices ? . . . Did you ever consider how 
a man like that would feel? I have no domestic tradi- 
tion. I have nothing to think against. My tradi- 
tion is historical. What have I to look back to but 

S8 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


that national past from which you gentlemen want to 
wrench away your future ? Am I to let my intelligence, 
my aspirations toward a better lot, be robbed of the 
only thing it has to go upon at the will of violent en- 
thusiasts? You come from your province, but all this 
land is mine — or I have nothing. No doubt you shall 
be looked upon as a martyr some day — a sort of hero — 
a political saint. But I beg to be excused. I am con- 
tent in fitting myself to be a worker. And what can 
you people do by scattering a few drops of blood on 
the snow ? On this Immensity ? On this unhappy 
Immensity? I tell you,” he cried, in a vibrating, sub- 
dued voice and advancing one step nearer the bed, 
“that what it needs is not a lot of haunting phantoms 
that I could walk through — ^but a man!” 

Haldin threw his arms forward as if to keep him off 
in horror. 

‘‘I understand it all now,” he exclaimed, with awe- 
struck dismay. ‘‘I understand — at last.” 

Razumov staggered back against the table. His fore- 
head broke out in perspiration, while a cold shudder ran 
down his spine. 

‘‘ What have I been saying?” he asked himself. ” Have 
I let him slip through my fingers, after all?” 

He felt his lips go stiff like buckram, and instead of a 
reassuring smile he only achieved an uncertain grimace. 

‘‘What will you have?” he began, in a conciliating 
voice, which got steady after the first trembling word 
or two. ‘‘What will you have? Consider — a man of 
studious, retired habits — and suddenly like this. ... I 
am not practised in talking delicately. But . . .” 

He felt anger, a wicked anger, get hold of him again. 

‘‘ What were we to do together till midnight ? Sit here 
opposite each other and think of your — your — shambles ?” 

Haldin had a subdued, heartbroken attitude. He 
bowed his head; his hands hung between his ,knees. 
His voice was low and pained, but calm. 

59 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


“I see now how it is, Razumov — brother. You are 
a magnanimous soul, but my action is abhorrent to you 
—alas . . 

Razumov stared. From fright he had set his teeth 
so hard that his whole face ached. It was impossible 
for him to make a sound. 

“And even my person, too, is loathsome to you, per- 
haps,” Haldin added, mournfully, after a short pause, 
looking up for a moment, then fixing his gaze on the 
floor. “For, indeed, unless one ...” 

He broke off, evidently waiting 'for a word. Razumov 
remained silent. Haldin nodded his head dejectedly 
twice. 

“Of course. Of course,” he murmured. . . . “Ah! 
weary work!” 

He remained perfectly still for a moment, then made 
Razumov’ s leaden heart strike a ponderous blow by 
springing up briskly. 

“So be it,” he cried, sadly, in a low, distinct tone. 
“Farewell then.” 

Razumov started forward, but the sight of Haldin^s 
raised hand checked him before he could get away from 
the table. He leaned on it heavily, listening to the 
faint sounds of some town clock tolling the hour. Hal- 
din already at the door, tall and straight as an arrow, 
with his pale face and a hand raised attentively, might 
have posed for the statue of a daring youth listening 
to an inner voice. Razumov mechanically glanced 
down at his watch. When he looked toward the door 
again Haldin had vanished. There was a faint rustling 
in the outer room, the feeble click of a bolt drawn back 
lightly. He was gone — almost as noiseless as a vision. 

Razumov ran forward unsteadily, with parted, voice- 
less lips. The outer door stood open. Staggering on 
the landing, he leaned far over the banister. Gazing 
down into the deep black shaft, with a tiny, glimmering 
flame at the bottom, he traced by ear the rapid spiral 

6o 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


descent of somebody running down the stairs on tip- 
toe. It was a light, swift, pattering sound, that sank 
away from him into the depths; a fleeting shadow 
passed over the glimmer — a wink of the tiny flame. 
Then stillness. 

Razumov hung over, breathing the cold, raw air 
tainted by the evil smells of the unclean staircases. All 
quiet. 

He went back into his room, slowly shutting the doors 
after him. The peaceful, steady light of his little read- 
ing-lamp shone on the watch. Razumov stood looking 
down at the little white dial. It wanted yet three 
minutes to midnight. He took the watch into his 
hand, fumblingly. 

“Slow,” he muttered, and a strange fit of nerveless- 
ness came over him. His knees shook, the watch and 
chain slipped through his fingers in an instant and fell 
on the floor. He was so startled that he nearly fell 
himself. When at last he regained enough confidence 
in his limbs to stoop for it, he held it to his ear at once. 
After a while he growled: 

“Stopped!” and paused for quite a long time before 
he muttered, sourly: 

“It’s done. . . . And now to work.” 

He sat down, reached haphazard for a book, opened 
it in the middle and began to read; but after going con- 
sciously over two lines he lost his hold on the print 
completely and did not try to regain it. He thought: 

“There was to a certainty a police agent of some sort 
watching the house across the street.” 

He imagined him lurking in a dark gateway, goggle- 
eyed, muffled up in a cloak to the nose, and with a gen- 
eral’s plumed, cocked hat on his head. This absurdity 
made him start in the chair convulsively. He literally 
had to shake his head violently to get rid of it. The 
man would be disguised, perhaps, as a peasant ... a 
beggar. . . . Perhaps he would be just buttoned up in a 

6i 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


dark overcoat and carrying a loaded stick — a shifty- 
eyed rascal, smelling of raw onions and spirits. 

This evocation brought on positive nausea. “Why 
do I want to bother about this?” thought Razumov, 
with disgust. “Am I a gendarme? Moreover, it is 
done.” 

He got up in great agitation. It was not done. Not 
yet. Not till half-past twelve. And the watch had 
stopped. This reduced him to despair. Impossible to 
know the time ! The landlady and all the people across 
the landing were asleep.^ How could he go and . . . God 
knows what they would imagine, or how much they 
would guess. He dared not go into the streets to find 
out. “I am a suspect now. There’s no use shirking 
that fact,” he said to himself, bitterly. If Haldin from 
some cause or another gave them the slip and failed to 
turn up in the Karabelnaya, the police would be in- 
vading his lodging. And if he were not in he could never 
clear himself. Never. Razumov looked wildly about, 
as if for some means of seizing upon time which seemed 
to have escaped him altogether. He had never, as far 
as he could remember, heard the striking of that town 
clock in his rooms before this night. And he was not 
even sure now whether he had heard it really on this 
night. 

He went to the window and stood there with slightly 
bent head on the watch for the faint sound. “ I will stay 
here till I hear something,” he said to himself. He stood 
still, his ear turned to the panes. An atrocious aching 
numbness with shooting pains in his back and legs tort- 
ured him. He did not budge. His mind hovered on 
the borders of delirium. He heard himself suddenly 
saying, “I confess,” as a person might do on the rack. 
“I am on the rack,” he thought. He felt ready to 
swoon. The faint, deep boom of the distant clock 
seemed to explode in his head — he heard it so clearly. 
. . . One! 


62 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


If Haldin had not turned up, the police would have 
been already here ransacking the house. No sound 
reached him. This time it was done. 

He dragged himself painfully to the table and dropped 
into the chair. He flung the book away and took a 
square sheet of paper. It was like the pile of sheets 
covered with his neat, minute handwriting, only blank. 
He took a pen brusquely and dipped it with a vague 
notion of going on with the writing of his essay — but his 
pen remained poised over the sheet. It hung there for 
some time before it came down and formed long, scrawly 
letters. 

Still - faced and his lips set hard, Razumov began to 
write. When he wrote a large hand his neat handwrit- 
ing lost its character altogether — became unsteady, al- 
most childish. He wrote five lines, one under the other: 

History, not Theory. 

Patriotism, not Internationalism. 

Evolution, not Revolution. 

Direction, not Destruction. 

Unity, not Disruption. 

He gazed at them dully. Then his eyes strayed to 
the bed, and remained fixed there for a good many 
minutes, while his right hand groped all over the table 
for the penknife. 

He rose at last, and, walking up with measured steps, 
stabbed the paper with the penknife to the lath-and- 
plaster wall at the head of the bed. This done he 
stepped back a pace and flourished his hand with a 
glance round the room. 

After that he never looked again at the bed. He 
took his big cloak down from its peg, and, wrapping him- 
self up closely, went to lie down on the hard horsehair 
sofa at the other side of his room. A leaden sleep 
closed his eyelids at once. Several times that night he 
woke up shivering from a dream of walking through 

63 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


drifts of snow in a Russia where he was as com- 
pletely alone as any betrayed autocrat could be; an 
immense wintry Russia which somehow his view could 
embrace in all its enormous expanse as if it were a map. 
But after each shuddering start his heavy eyelids fell 
over his glazed eyes and he slept again. 


Ill 


APPROACHING this part of Mr. Razumov’s story, 
/A my mind, the decent mind of an old teacher of 
languages, feels more and more the difficulty of the task. 

The task is not, in truth, the writing in the narrative 
form a precis of a strange human document, but the 
rendering — I perceive it now clearly — of the moral con- 
ditions ruling over a large portion of this earth’s surface; 
conditions not easily to be understood, much less dis- 
covered in the limits of a story, till some key-word is 
found; a word that could stand at the back of all 
the words covering the pages; a word which, if not 
truth itself, may, perchance, hold truth enough to 
help the moral discovery which should be the object 
of every tale. 

I turn over for the hundredth time the leaves of Mr. 
Razumov’s record, I lay it aside, I take up the pen — and, 
the pen being ready for its office of setting down black 
on white, I hesitate. For the word that persists in creep- 
ing under its point is no other word than “ cynicism.” 

For that is the mark of Russian autocracy and of 
Russian revolt. In its pride of numbers, in its strange 
pretensions of sanctity, and in the secret readiness to 
abase itself in suffering, the spirit of Russia is the spirit 
of cynicism. It informs the declarations of her states- 
men, the theories of her revolutionists, and the mystic 
vaticinations of prophets to the point of making freedom 
look like a form of debauch, and the Christian virtues 
themselves appear actually indecent. . . . But I must 
apologize for the digression. It proceeds from the con- 

6$ 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


sideration of the course taken by the story of Mr. 
Razumov after his conservative convictions diluted in a 
vague liberalism natural to the ardor of his age had be- 
come crystallized by the shock of his contact with Haldin. 

Razumov woke up for the tenth time, perhaps, with a 
heavy shiver. Seeing the light of day in his window, he 
resisted the inclination to lay himself down again. He 
did not remember anything, but he did not think it 
strange to find himself on the sofa in his cloak and chilled 
to the bone. The light coming through the window 
seemed strangely cheerless, containing no promise as the 
light of each new day should for a young man. It was the 
awakening of a man mortally ill, or of a man ninety years 
old. He looked at the lamp, which had burned itself out. 
It stood there, the extinguished beacon of his labors, a 
cold object of brass and porcelain, among the scattered 
pages of his notes and small piles of books — a mere litter 
of blackened paper — dead matter — without significance 
or interest. 

He got on his feet, and, divesting himself of his cloak, 
hung it on 'the peg, going through all the motions me- 
chanically. An incredible dullness, a ditch-water stag- 
nation, was sensible to his perceptions as though life had 
withdrawn itself from all things and even from his own 
thoughts. There was not a sound in the house. 

Turning away from the peg, he thought in that same 
lifeless manner that it must be very early yet ; but when 
he looked at the watch on his table he saw both hands 
arrested at twelve o’clock. 

“Ah! yes,’’ he mumbled to himself, and, as if begin- 
ning to get roused a little, he took a survey of his room. 
The paper stabbed to the wall arrested his attention. 
He eyed it from the distance without approval or per- 
plexity; but when he heard the servant girl beginning 
to bustle about in the outer room with the samovar for his 
morning tea, he walked up to it and took it down with an 
air of profound indifference. 

66 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


While doing that he glanced down at the bed on 
which he had not slept that night. The hollow in the 
pillow made by the weight of Haldin’s head was very 
noticeable. 

Even his anger at this sign of the man's passage was 
dull. He did not try to nurse it into life. He did noth- 
ing all that day; he neglected even to brush his hair. 
The idea of going out never occurred to him — and, if he 
did not start a connected train of thought, it was not 
because he was unable to think. It was because he was 
not interested enough. 

He yawned frequently. He drank large quantities 
of tea. He walked about aimlessly, and when he sat 
down he did not budge for a long time. He spent some 
time drumming on the window with his finger-tips 
quietly. In his listless wanderings round about the 
table he caught sight of his own face in the looking-glass, 
and that arrested him. The eyes which returned his 
stare were the most unhappy eyes he had ever seen. 
And this was the first thing that disturbed the mental 
stagnation of that day. 

He was not affected personally. He merely thought 
that life without happiness is impossible. What was 
happiness ? He yawned and went on shuffling about and 
about between the walls of his room. Looking forward 
was happiness — that’s all — nothing more. To look for- 
ward to the gratification of some desire, to the gratifica- 
tion of some passion, love, ambition, hate — hate, too, 
indubitably love and hate. And to escape the dangers 
of existence, to live without fear, was also happiness. 
There was nothing else. Absence of fear — looking for- 
ward. “Oh! the miserable lot of humanity!” he ex- 
claimed, mentally, and added at once in his thought: 
“ I ought to be happy enough, as far as that goes.” But 
he was not excited by that assurance. On the contrary, 
he yawned again as he had been yawning all that day. 
He was mildly surprised to discover himself being over- 

67 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


taken by night. The room grew dark swiftly, though 
time had seemed to stand still. How was it that he had 
not noticed the passing of that day? Of course it was 
the watch being stopped. ... 

He did not light his lamp, but went over to the bed 
and threw himself on it without any hesitation. Lying 
on his back, he put his hands under his head and stared 
upward. After a moment he thought: “I am lying 
here like that man. I wonder if he slept while I was 
struggling with the blizzard in the streets ? No, he did 
not sleep. But why should I not sleep?” And he felt 
the silence of the night press upon all his limbs like a 
weight. 

In the calm of the hard frost outside, the clear-cut 
strokes of the town clock counting off midnight pene- 
trated the quietness of his suspended animation. 

Again he began to think. It was twenty-four hours 
since that man left his room. Razumov had a distinct 
feeling that Haldin in the fortress was sleeping that 
night. It was a certitude which made him angry, be- 
cause he did not want to think of Haldin, but he justified 
it to himself by physiological and psychological reasons. 
The fellow had hardly slept for weeks on his own con- 
fession, and now every incertitude was at an end for 
him. No doubt he was looking forward to the con- 
summation of his martyrdom. A man who resigns him- 
self to kill need not go very far for resignation to die. 

Haldin slept, perhaps, more soundly than General T , 

whose task — weary work, too — was not done, and over 
whose head hung the sword of revolutionary vengeance. 

Razumov remembering the thick-set man with his 
heavy jowl resting on the collar of his uniform; the 
champion of autocracy, who had let no sign of surprise, 
incredulity, or joy escape him, but whose goggle eyes 
could express a mortal hatred of all rebellion. Razumov 
moved uneasily on the bed. 

” He suspected me,” he thought. “ I suppose he must 
68 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


suspect everybody. He would be capable of suspecting 
his own wife, if Haldin had gone to her boudoir with his 
confession.” 

Razumov sat up in anguish. Was he to remain a 
political suspect all his days? Was he to go through 
life as a man not wholly to be trusted — with a bad secret- 
police note tacked onto his record ? What sort of future 
could he look forward to? 

“I am now a suspect,” he thought again; but the 
habit of reflection and that desire of safety, of an or- 
dered life, which was so strong in him, came to his assist- 
ance as the night wore on. His quiet, steady, and labori- 
ous existence would vouch at length for his loyalty. 
There were many permitted ways to serve one's country. 
There was an activity that made for progress without 
being revolutionary. The field of influence was great 
and infinitely varied — once one had conquered a name. 

His thought, like a circling bird, reverted after four- 
and-twenty hours to the silver medal, and, as it were, 
poised itself there. When the day broke he had not 
slept, not for a moment, but he got up not very tired 
and quite sufficiently self-possessed for all practical pur- 
poses. 

He went out and attended three lectures in the morn- 
ing. But the work in the library was a mere dumb show 
of research. He sat with many volumes open before 
him trying to make notes and extracts. His new tran- 
quillity was like a flimsy garment, and seemed to float 
at the mercy of a casual word. Betrayal! Why, the 
fellow had done all that was necessary to betray him- 
self. Precious little had been needed to deceive him. 

“ I have said no word to him that was not strictly true. 
Not one word,” Razumov argued with himself. 

Once engaged on this line of thought, there could be 
no question of doing useful work. The same ideas went 
on passing through his mind, and he pronounced men- 
tally the same words over and over again. He shut up 
69 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


all the books and rammed all his papers into his pocket 
with convulsive movements, raging inwardly against 
Haldin. 

As he was leaving the library a long, bony student 
in a threadbare overcoat joined him, stepping moodily 
by his side. Razumov answered his mumbled greeting 
without looking at him at all. 

“What does he want with me?” he thought, with a 
strange dread of the unexpected, which he tried to shake 
off lest it should fasten itself upon his life for good and 
all. And the other, muttering cautiously with downcast 
eyes, supposed that his comrade had seen the news of 

De P ’s executioner — that was the expression he 

used — having been arrested the night before last. . . . 

“I’ve been ill — shut up in my rooms,” Razumov 
mumbled through his teeth. 

The tall student, raising his shoulders, shoved his 
hands deep into his pockets. He had a hairless, square, 
tallowy chin which trembled slightly as he spoke, and 
his nose, nipped bright red by the sharp air, looked like 
a false nose of painted cardboard between the sallow 
cheeks. His whole appearance was stamped with the 
mark of cold and hunger. He stalked deliberately at 
Razumov ’s elbow with his eyes on the ground. 

“It’s an official statement,” he continued, in the 
same cautious mutter. “It may be a lie. But there 
was somebody arrested between midnight and one in 
the morning on Tuesday. This is certain.” 

And talking rapidly under the cover of his downcast 
air, he told Razumov that this was known through an 
inferior Government clerk employed at the Central 
Secretariat. That man belonged to one of the revolu- 
tionary circles. “The same, in fact, I am affiliated to,” 
remarked the student. 

They were crossing a wide quadrangle. An infinite 
distress possessed Razumov, annihilated his energy, and 
before his eyes everything appealed confused and as if 

70 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


evanescent. He dared not leave the fellow there. “He 
may be affiliated to the police,” was the thought that 
passed through his mind. “Who could tell?” But ey- 
ing the miserable frost-nipped, famine-struck figure of 
his companion, he perceived the absurdity of his sus- 
picion. 

“But I — you know — I don’t belong to any circle. 
I . . .” 

He dared not say any more. Neither dared he mend his 
pace. The other, raising and setting down his lament- 
ably shod feet with exact deliberation, protested in a low 
tone that it was not necessary for everybody to belong 
to an organization. The most valuable personalities re- 
mained outside. Some of the best work was done out- 
side the organization. Then, very fast, with whispering, 
feverish lips: 

“The man arrested in the street was Haldin.’* 

And accepting Razumov’s dismayed silence as natural 
enough, he assured him that there was no mistake. That 
Government clerk was on night duty at the Secretariat. 
Hearing a great noise of footsteps in the hall, and aware 
that political prisoners were brought over sometimes at 
night from the fortress, he opened the door of the room 
in which he was working suddenly. Before the gen- 
darme on duty could push him back and slam the door 
in his face, he had seen a prisoner being partly carried, 
partly dragged along the hall by a lot of policemen. He 
was being used very brutally. And the clerk had recog- 
nized Haldin perfectly. Less than half an hour after- 
ward General T arrived at the Secretariat to ex- 

amine that prisoner personally. 

“Aren’t you astonished?” concluded the gaunt stu- 
dent. 

“No,” said Razumov, brutally, and at once regretted 
his answer. 

“Everybody supposed Haldin was in the provinces— 
with his people. Didn’t you?” 

6 71 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


The student turned his big, hollow eyes upon Razumov, 
who said, unguardedly: 

“His people are abroad.” 

He could have bitten his tongue out with vexation. 

The student pronounced in a tone of profound mean- 
ing: “So! You alone were aware . . and stopped. 

“They have sworn my ruin,” thought Razumov. 
“Have you spoken of this to any one else?” he asked, 
with bitter curiosity. 

The other shook his head. 

“No, only to you. Our circle thought that as Haldin 
had been often heard expressing a warm appreciation of 
your character . . .” 

Razumov could not restrain a gesture of angry despair, 
which the other must have misunderstood in some way, 
because he ceased speaking and turned away his black, 
lackluster eyes. 

They moved side by side in silence. Then the gaunt 
student began to whisper again, with averted gaze. 

“As we have at present no one affiliated inside the 
fortress so as to make it possible to furnish him with a 
packet of poison, we have considered already some sort 
of retaliatory action — ^to follow very soon. . . .” 

Razumov, trudging on, interrupted: 

“Were you acquainted with Haldin? Did he know 
where you live?” 

“I had the happiness to hear him speak twice,” his 
companion answered, in the feverish whisper contrasting 
with the gloomy apathy of his face and bearing. “He 
did not know where I live ... I am lodging poorly . . . 
with an artisan family ... I have just a comer in a 
room. It is not very practicable to see me there, but if 
you should need me for anything I am ready. . . .” 

Razumov trembled with rage and fear. He was be- 
side himself, but kept his voice low. 

“You are not to come near me. You are not to speak 
to me. Never address a single word to me. I forbid you.” 

72 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


“Very well,” said the other, submissively, showing no 
surprise whatever at this abrupt prohibition. “You 
don’t wish for secret reasons . . . perfectly ... I un- 
derstand.” 

He edged away at once, not looking up even; and 
Razumov saw his gaunt, shabby, famine-stricken figure 
cross the street obliquely with lowered head and that 
peculiar exact motion of the feet. 

He watched him as one would watch a vision out of a 
nightmare, then he continued on his way, trying not to 
think. On his landing the landlady seemed to be waiting 
for him. She was a short, thick, shapeless woman with 
a large yellow face wrapped up everlastingly in a black 
woolen shawl. When she saw him come up the last 
flight of stairs she flung both her arms up excitedly, then 
clasped her hands before her face. 

“Kirylo Sidorovitch — little father — what have you 
been doing? And such a quiet young man, too! The 
police are just gone this moment after searching your 
rooms.” 

Razumov gazed down at her with silent, scrutinizing 
attention. Her puffy yellow countenance was working 
with emotion. She screwed up her eyes at him en- 
treatingly. 

“Such a sensible young man! Anybody can see you 
are sensible. And now — like this — all at once. . . . 
What is the good of mixing yourself up with these 
Nihilists? Do give over — little father. They are un- 
lucky people.” 

Razumov moved his shoulders slightly. 

“Or is it that some secret enemy has been calumniat- 
ing you, Kirylo Sidorovitch ? The world is full of black 
hearts and false denunciations nowadays. There is 
much fear about.” 

“Have you heard that I have been denounced by 
some one?” asked Razumov, without taking his eyes 
off her quivering face. 


73 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


But she had not heard anything. She had tried to 
find out by asking the police captain while his men 
were turning the room upside down. The police cap- 
tain of the district had known her for the last eleven 
years, and was a humane person. But he said to her 
on the landing, looking very black and vexed : 

“My good woman, do you ask questions? I don’t 
know anything myself. The order comes from higher 
quarters.’’ 

And, indeed, there had come shortly after the arrival 
of the policemen of the district a very superior gentle- 
man in a fur coat and a shiny hat, who sat down in the 
room and looked through all the papers himself. He 
came alone and went away by himself, taking nothing 
with him. She had been trying to put things straight 
a little since they left. 

Razumov turned away brusquely and entered his 
rooms. 

All his books had been shaken and thrown on the 
floor. His landlady followed him, and, stooping pain- 
fully, began to pick them up into her apron. His papers 
and notes, which were kept always neatly sorted (they 
all related to his studies), had been shuffled up and 
heaped together into a ragged pile in the middle of the 
table. 

This disorder affected him profoundly, unreasonably. 
He sat down and stared. He had a distinct sensation 
of his very existence being undermined in some mysteri- 
ous manner, of his moral supports falling away from 
him one by one. He even experienced a slight physical 
giddiness, and made a movement as if to reach for some- 
thing to steady himself with. 

The old woman, rising to her feet with a low groan, 
shot all the books she had collected in her apron onto 
the sofa and left the room muttering and sighing. 

It was only then that he noticed that the sheet of 
paper which for one night had remained stabbed to 

74 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 

the wall above his empty bed was lying on top of the 
pile. 

When he had taken it down the day before, he had 
folded it in four absent-mindedly before dropping it on 
the table. And now he saw it lying uppermost, spread 
out, smoothed out even, and covering all the confused 
pile of pages, the record of his intellectual life for the 
last three years. It had not been flung there. It had 
been placed there — smoothed out, too ! He guessed 
in that an intention of profound meaning — or perhaps 
some inexplicable mockery. 

He sat staring at the piece of paper till his eyes be- 
gan to smart. He did not attempt to put his papers 
in order, either that evening or the next day — which 
he spent at home in a state of peculiar irresolution. 
This irresolution bore upon the question whether he 
should continue to live — neither more nor less. But 
its nature was very far removed from the hesitation of 
a man contemplating suicide. The idea of laying vio- 
lent hands upon his body did not occur to Razumov. 
The unrelated organism bearing that label, walking, 
breathing, wearing these clothes, was of no importance 
to any one, unless maybe to the landlady. The true 
Razumov had his being in the willed, in the determined 
future — in that future menaced by the lawlessness of 
autocracy — for autocracy knows no law — and the law- 
lessness of revolution. The feeling that his moral per- 
sonality was at the mercy of these lawless forces was so 
strong that he asked himself seriously if it were worth 
while to go on accomplishing the mental functions of 
that existence which seemed no longer his own. 

“What is the good of exerting my intelligence, of 
pursuing the systematic development of my faculties, 
and all my plans of work?” he asked himself. “I want 
to guide my conduct by reasonable convictions, but 
what security have I against something — some destruc- 
tive horror — walking in upon me as I sit here? . . .” 

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UNDER WESTERN EYES 


Razumov looked apprehensively toward the door of 
the outer room, as if expecting some shape of evil to 
turn the handle and appear before him silently. 

“A common thief,” he said to himself, “finds more 
guarantees in the law he is breaking, and even a brute 
like Ziemianitch has his consolation.” Razumov en- 
vied the materialism of the thief and the passion of the 
incorrigible lover. The consequences of their actions 
were always clear, and their lives remained their own. 

But he slept as soundly that night as though he had 
been consoling himself in the manner of Ziemianitch. 
He dropped off suddenly, lay like a log, remembered no 
dream on waking. But it was as if his soul had gone 
out in the night to gather the flowers of wrathful wis- 
dom. He got up in a mood of grim determination, and 
as if with a new knowledge of his own nature. He 
looked mockingl)^ on the heap of papers on his table, 
and left his room to attend the lectures, muttering to 
himself, “We shall see.” 

He was in no humor to talk to anybody, or hear him- 
self questioned as to his absence from lectures the day 
before. But it was difficult to repulse rudely a very 
good comrade with a smooth, pink face and fair hair, 
bearing the nickname among his fellow - students of 
“Madcap Kostia.” He was the idolized only son of a 
very wealthy and illiterate Government contractor, and 
attended the lectures only during the periodical fits of 
contrition following upon tearful paternal remon- 
, strances. Noisily blundering like a retriever puppy, 
his elated voice and great gestures filled the bare acad- 
emy corridors with the joy of thoughtless animal life, 
provoking indulgent smiles at a great distance. His 
usual discourses treated of trotting-horses, wine-parties 
in expensive restaurants, and the merits of persons of 
easy virtue, with a disarming artlessness of outlook. 
He pounced upon Razumov about midday, somewhat 
less uproariously than his habit was, and led him aside. 

76 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


Just a moment, Kirylo Sidorovitch. A few words 
here in this quiet corner.” 

He felt Razumov’s reluctance, and insinuated his 
hand under his arm caressingly. 

‘‘No — pray do. I don’t want to talk to you about 
any of my silly scrapes. What are my scrapes ? Abso- 
lutely nothing. Mere childishness. The other night I 
flung a fellow out of a certain place where I was having 
a fairly good time. A tyrannical little beast of a quill- 
driver from the Treasury Department. . . . He was bully- 
ing the people of the house. I rebuked him. ‘You 
are not behaving humanely to God’s creatures that are 
a jolly sight more estimable than yourself,’ I said. I 
can’t bear to see any tyranny, Kirylo Sidorovitch. 
Upon my word I can’t. He didn’t take it in good part 
at all. ‘Who’s that impudent puppy?’ he begins to 
shout. I was in excellent form, as it happened, and he 
went through the closed window very suddenly. He 
flew quite a long way into the yard. I raged like — 
like a — minotaur. The women clung to me and 
screamed, the fiddlers got under the table. . . . Such fun! 
My dad had to put his hand pretty deep into his pocket, 
I can tell you.” 

He chuckled. 

‘‘My dad is a very useful man. Jolly good thing it is 
for me, too. I do get into unholy scrapes.” 

His elation fell. That was just it. What was his 
life? Insignificant; no good to any one; a mere fes- 
tivity. It would end some fine day in his getting his 
skull split with a champagne bottle in a drunken brawl. 
At such times, too, when men were sacrificing them- 
selves to ideas. But he could never get any ideas into 
his head. His head wasn’t worth anything better than 
to be split by a champagne bottle. 

Razumov, protesting that he had no time, made an 
attempt to get away. The other’s tone changed to 
<=onfidential earnestness : 


77 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


“For God’s sake, Kirylo, my dear soul, let me make 
some sort of sacrifice. It would not be a sacrifice really. 
I have my rich dad behind me. There’s positively no 
getting to the bottom of his pocket.” 

And rejecting indignantly Razumov’s suggestion that 
this was drunken raving, he offered to lend him some 
money to escape abroad with. He could always get 
money from his dad. He had only to say that he had 
lost it at cards or something of that sort, and at the 
same time promise solemnly not to miss a single 
lecture for three months on end. That would fetch the 
old man; and he, Kostia, was quite equal to the sacri- 
fice. Though he really did not see what was the good 
for him to attend the lectures. It was perfectly hope- 
less. 

“Won’t you let me be of some use?” he pleaded to 
the silent Razumov, who, with his eyes on the ground 
and utterly unable to penetrate the real drift of the 
other’s intention, felt a strange reluctance to clear up 
the point. 

“What makes you think I want to go abroad?” he 
asked, at last, very quietly. 

Kostia lowered his voice. 

“You had the police in your rooms yesterday. There 
are three or four of us who have heard of that. Never 
mind how we know. It is sufficient that we do. So 
we have been consulting together.” 

“Ah! You got to know that so soon?” muttered 
Razumov, negligently. 

“Yes. We did. And it struck us that a man like 
you . . .” 

“What sort of man do you take me to be?” Razumov 
interrupted him. 

“ A man of ideas — and a man of action, too. But you 
are very deep, Kirylo. There’s no getting to the bottom 
of your mind. Not for fellows like me. But we all 
agreed that you must be preserved for our country. 

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UNDER WESTERN EYES 


Of that we have no doubt whatever — I mean all of us 
who have heard Haldin speak of you on certain occa- 
sions. A man doesn’t get the police ransacking his 
rooms without there being some devilry hanging over 
his head. . . . And so if you think that it would be better 
for you to bolt at once ...” 

Razumov tore himself away and walked down the 
corridor, leaving the other motionless with his mouth 
open. But almost at once he returned and stood before 
the amazed Kostia, who shut his mouth slowly. Razu- 
mov looked him straight in the eyes before saying, with 
marked deliberation and separating his words: 

‘ ‘ I thank — you— very — much . ’ ’ 

He went away again rapidly. Kostia, recovering 
from his surprise at these manoeuvers, ran up behind 
him pressingly. 

“No! Wait! Listen! I really mean it. It would 
be like giving your compassion to a starving fellow. 
Do you hear, Kirylo ? And any disguise you may 
think of, that too, I could procure from a costumier, a 
Jew I know. Let a fool be made serviceable according 
to his folly. Perhaps also a false beard or something 
of that kind may be needed.” 

Razumov turned at bay. 

“There are no false beards needed in this business, 
Kostia — you good-hearted lunatic, you. What do you 
know of my ideas? My ideas may be poison to you.” 

The other began to shake his head in energetic protest. 

“What have you got to do with ideas? Some of 
them would make an end of your dad’s money-bags. 
Leave off meddling with what you don’t understand. 
Go back to your trotting - horses and your girls, and 
then you’ll be sure at least of doing no harm to any- 
body, and hardly any to yourself.” 

The enthusiastic youth was overcome by this disdain. 

“You’re sending me back to my pig’s trough, Kirylo. 
That settles it. I am an unlucky beast — and I shall die 

^9 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


like a beast, too. But mind — it’s your contempt that 
has done for me.” 

Razumov went off with long strides. That this sim- 
ple and grossly festive soul should have fallen, too, 
under the revolutionary curse affected him as an omi- 
nous symptom of the time. He reproached himself for 
feeling troubled. Personally he ought to have felt 
reassured. There was an obvious advantage in this con- 
spiracy of mistaken judgment taking him for what he 
was not. But was it not strange? 

Again he experienced that sensation of his conduct 
being taken out of his hands by Haldin’s revolutionary 
tyranny. His solitary and laborious existence had been 
destroyed — ^the only thing he could call his own on this 
earth. By what right? he asked himself, furiously. 
In what name? 

What infuriated him most was to feel that the “think- 
ers” of the University were evidently connecting him 
with Haldin — as a sort of confidant in the background 
apparently. A mysterious connection! Ha, ha! . . . 
He had been made a personage without knowing any- 
thing about it. How that wretch Haldin must have 
talked about him! Yet it was likely that Haldin had 
said very little. The fellow’s casual utterances were 
caught up and treasured and pondered over by all these 
imbeciles. And was not all secret revolutionary action 
based upon folly, self-deception, and lies? 

“Impossible to think of anything else,” muttered 
Razumov to himself. “ I’ll become an idiot if this goes 
on. The scoundrels and the fools are murdering my 
intelligence.” 

He lost all hope of saving his future, which depended 
on the free use of his intelligence. 

He reached the doorway of his house in a state of 
mental discouragement, which enabled him to receive 
with apparent indifference an official-looking envelope 
from the dirty hand of the dvornik. 

8o 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


“A gendarme brought it,” said the man. “He asked 
if you were at home. I told him, * No, he’s not at home.’ 
So he left it. ‘Give it into his own hands,’ says he. 
Now you’ve got it — eh?” 

He went back to his sweeping, and Razumov climbed 
his stairs, envelope in hand. Once in his room he did 
not hasten to open it. Of course this official missive 
was from the superior direction of the police. A sus- 
pect ! A suspect ! 

He stared in dreary astonishment at the absurdity of 
his position. He thought with a sort of dry unemo- 
tional melancholy; three years of good work gone, the 
course of forty more perhaps jeopardized — turned from 
hope to terror, because events started by human folly 
link themselves into a sequence which no sagacity can 
foresee and no courage can break through. Fatality 
enters your rooms while your landlady’s back is turned; 
you come home and find it in possession bearing a man’s 
name, clothed in flesh — wearing a brown cloth coat and 
long boots — ^lounging against the stove. It asks you: 
” Is the outer door closed ?” — and you don’t know enough 
to take it by the throat and fling it down-stairs. You 
don’t know. You welcome the crazy fate. “ Sit down,” 
you say. And it is all over. You cannot shake it off 
any more. It will cling to you forever. Neither halter 
nor bullet can give you back the freedom of your life 
and the sanity of your thought. ... It was enough to 
dash one’s head against a wall. 

Razumov looked slowly all round the walls, as if to 
select a spot to dash his head against. Then he opened 
the letter. It directed the student, Kirylo Sidorovitch 
Razumov, to present himself without delay at the Gen- 
eral Secretariat. 

Razumov had a vision of General T ’s goggle eyes 

waiting for him — the embodied power of autocracy, 
grotesque and terrible. He embodied the whole power 
of autocracy, because he was its guardian. He was the 

8i 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 

incarnate suspicion, the incarnate anger, the incarnate 
ruthlessness of a political and social regime on its de- 
fence. He loathed rebellion by instinct. And Razumov 
reflected that the man was simply unable to understand 
a reasonable adherence to the doctrine of absolutism. 

“What can he want with me precisely — I wonder?” 
he asked himself. 

As if that mental question had evoked the familiar 
phantom, Haldin stood suddenly before him in the room 
with an extraordinary completeness of detail. Though 
the short winter day had passed already into the sinister 
twilight of a land buried in snow, Razumov saw plainly 
the narrow leather strap round the Tcherkess coat. The 
illusion of that hateful presence was so perfect that he 
half expected it to ask, “Is the outer door closed?” 
He looked at it with hatred and contempt. Souls do 
not take a shape of clothing. Moreover, Haldin could 
not be dead yet. Razumov stepped forward menac- 
ingly; the vision vanished — and turning short on his 
heel he walked out of his room with infinite disdain. 

But after going down the first flight of stairs it oc- 
curred to him that perhaps the superior authorities 
of police meant to confront him with Haldin in the 
flesh. This thought struck him like a bullet — and had 
he not clung with both hands to the banister he would 
have rolled down to the next landing most likely. His 
legs were of no use for a considerable time. . , . But why? 
For what conceivable reason? To what end? 

There could be no rational answer to these questions, 
but Razumov remembered the promise made by the 

General to Prince K . His action was to remain 

unknown. 

He got down to the bottom of the stairs, lowering him- 
self, as it were, from step to step by the banister. 
Under the gate he regained much of his firmness of 
thought and limb. He went out into the street without 
staggering visibly. Every moment he felt steadier 

82 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


mentally. And yet he was saying to himself that 

General T was perfectly capable of shutting him 

up in the fortress for an indefinite time. His tempera- 
ment fitted his remorseless task, and his omnipotence 
made him inaccessible to reasonable argument. 

But when Razumov arrived at the Secretariat he dis- 
covered that he would have nothing to do with General 

T . It is evident from Mr. Razumov’s diary that 

this dreaded personality was to remain in the back- 
ground. A civilian of superior rank received him in a 
private room after a period of waiting in outer offices 
where a lot of scribbling went on at many tables in a 
heated and stuffy atmosphere. 

The clerk in uniform, who conducted him, said, in the 
corridor : 

“You are going before Gregory Matvieitch Mikulin.” 

There was nothing formidable about the man bearing 
that name. His mild, expectant glance was turned on 
the door already when Razumov entered. At once, with 
the penholder he was holding in his hand, he pointed to 
a deep sofa between two windows. He followed Razu- 
mov with his eyes while that last crossed the room and 
sat down. The mild gaze rested on him, not curious, not 
inquisitive — certainly not suspicious — almost without 
expression. In its passionless persistence there was 
something resembling sympathy. 

Razumov, who had prepared his will and his intelli- 
gence to encounter General T himself, was pro- 

foundly troubled. All the moral bracing-up against the 
possible excesses of power and passion went for nothing 
before this sallow man who wore a full undipped beard. 
It was fair, thin, and very fine. The light fell in coppery 
gleams on the protuberances of a high, rugged forehead. 
And the aspect of the broad, soft physiognomy was so 
homely and rustic that the careful middle parting of 
the hair seemed a pretentious affectation. 

The diary of Mr. Razumov testifies to some irritation 

83 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


on his part. I may remark here that the diary proper, 
consisting of the more or less daily entries, seems to have 
been begun on that very evening after Mr. Razumov had 
returned home. 

Mr. Razumov, then, was irritated. His strung-up 
individuality had gone to pieces within him very sud- 
denly. 

“I must be very prudent with him,” he warned him- 
self in the silence during which they sat gazing at each 
other. It lasted some little time and was characterized 
(for silences have their character) by a sort of sadness 
imparted to it, perhaps, by the mild and thoughtful 
manner of the bearded official. Razumov learned later 
that he was the chief of a department in the General 
Secretariat, with a rank in the civil service equivalent 
to that of a colonel in the army. 

Razumov’s mistrust became acute. The main point 
was not to be drawn into saying too much. He had been 
called there for some reason. What reason? To be 
given to understand that he was a suspect — and also, no 
doubt, to be pumped. As to what precisely? There 
was nothing. Or, perhaps, Haldin had been telling 
lies. . . . Every alarming uncertainty beset Razumov. 
He could bear the silence no longer, and, cursing himself 
for his weakness, spoke first, though he had promised 
himself not to do so on any account. 

“I haven’t lost a moment’s time,” he began in a 
hoarse, provoking tone; and then the faculty of speech 
seemed to leave him and enter the body of Councilor 
Mikulin, who chimed in approvingly : 

“Very proper. Very proper. Though as a matter of 
fact . . .” 

But the spell was broken and Razumov interrupted 
him boldly under a sudden conviction that this was the 
safest attitude to take. With a great flow of words he 
complained of being totally misunderstood. Even as 
he talked, with a perception of his own audacity, he 

84 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


thought that the word “misunderstood” was better than 
the word “mistrusted,” and he repeated it again with in- 
sistence. Suddenly he ceased, being seized with fright 
before the attentive immobility of the official. “What 
am I talking about?” he thought, eying him with a 
vague gaze. Mistrusted, not misunderstood, was the 
right symbol for these people. Misunderstood was the 
other kind of curse. Both had been brought on his 
head by that fellow Haldin. And his head ached ter- 
ribly. He passed his hand over his brow — an involun- 
tary gesture of suffering which he was too careless to 
restrain. At that moment Razumov beheld his own 
brain suffering on the rack — a long, pale figure drawn 
asunder horizontally with terrific force in the darkness of 
a vault and whose face he failed to see. It was as though 
he had dreamed for an infinitesimal fraction of time of 
some dark print of the Inquisition. . . . 

It is not to be seriously supposed that Razumov had 
actually dozed off and had dreamed, in the presence of 
Councilor Mikulin, of an old print of the Inquisition. 
He was, indeed, extremely exhausted, and he records 
a remarkably dreamlike impression of anguish at the 
circumstance that there was no one whatever near the 
pale and extended figure. The solitude of the racked 
victim was particularly horrible to behold. The mys- 
terious impossibility to see the face, he also notes, in- 
spired a sort of terror. All these characteristics of an 
ugly dream were present. Yet he is certain that he never 
lost the consciousness of himself on the sofa, leaning for- 
ward with his hands between his knees and turning his 
cap round and round in his fingers. But everything 
vanished at the voice of Councilor Mikulin. Razumov 
felt profoundly grateful for the even simplicity of its 
tone. 

“Yes. I have listened with interest. I comprehend 
in a measure your . . . But, indeed, you are mistaken 
in what you . . .” Councilor Mikulin uttered a series 

85 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


of broken sentences. Instead of finishing them he 
glanced down his beard. It was a deliberate curtail- 
ment, which, somehow, made the phrases more impres- 
sive. But he could talk fluently enough, as became 
apparent when, changing his tone to persuasiveness, he 
went on. “By listening to you as I did, I think I have 
proved that I do not regard our intercourse as strictly 
official . In fact, I don’t want it to have that character 
at all. . . . Oh yes! I admit that the request for your 
presence here had an official form. But I put it to you 
whether it was a form which would have been used to 
secure the attendance of a . . .” 

“Suspect,” exclaimed Razumov, looking straight into 
the official’s eyes. They were big, with heavy eyelids, 
and met his boldness with a dim, steadfast gaze. “A 
suspect.” The open repetition of that word which had 
been haunting all his waking hours gave Razumov a 
strange sort of satisfaction. Councilor Mikulin shook his 
head slightly. “Surely you do know that I’ve had my 
rooms searched by the police?” 

“ I was about to say a misunderstood person when you 
interrupted me,” insinuated, quietly. Councilor Mikulin. 

Razumov smiled without bitterness. The renewed 
sense of his intellectual superiority sustained him in the 
hour of danger. He said, a little disdainfully: 

“ I know I am but a reed. But I beg you to allow me 
the superiority of the thinking reed over the unthinking 
forces that are about to crush him out of existence. 
Practical thinking, in the last instance, is but criticism. 
I may, perhaps, be allowed to express my wonder at this 
action of the police being delayed for two full days, dur- 
ing which, of course, I could have annihilated everything 
compromising by burning it, let us say, and getting rid 
of the very ashes, for that matter.” 

“You are angry,” remarked the official, with an un- 
utterable simplicity of tone and manner. “Is that 
reasonable?” 


86 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


Razumov felt himself coloring with annoyance. 

“I am reasonable. I am even — permit me to say — a 
thinker, though to be sure this name nowadays seems 
to be the monopoly of hawkers of revolutionary wares, 
the slaves of some French or German thought — devil 
knows what foreign notions. But I am not an intel- 
lectual mongrel. I think like a Russian. I think 
faithfully — and I take the liberty to call myself a 
thinker. It is not a forbidden word, as far as I know.” 

“No. Why should it be a forbidden word?” Coun- 
cilor Mikulin turned in his seat with crossed legs and, 
resting his elbow on the table, propped his head on the 
knuckles of a half-closed hand. Razumov noticed a 
thick forefinger clasped by a massive gold band set with 
a blood-red stone — a signet ring that, looking as if it 
could weigh half a pound, was an appropriate ornament 
for that ponderous man with the accurate middle part- 
ing of glossy hair above a rugged Socratic forehead. 

“Could it be a wig?” Razumov detected himself 
wondering with an unexpected detachment. His self- 
confidence was much shaken. He resolved to chatter no 
more. Reserve! Reserve! All he had to do was to 
keep the Ziemianitch episode secret with absolute de- 
termination, when the questions came. Keep Ziemia- 
nitch strictly out of all the answers. 

Councilor Mikulin looked at him dimly. Razumov’s 
self-confidence abandoned him completely. It seemed 
impossible to keep Ziemianitch out. Every question 
would lead to that, because, of course, there was nothing 
else. He made an effort to brace himself up. It was a 
failure. But Councilor Mikulin was surprisingly de- 
tached, too. 

“ Why should it be forbidden ? ” he repeated. “ I, too, 
consider myself a thinking man, I assure you. The 
principal condition is to think correctly. I admit it is 
difficult sometimes at first for a young man abandoned 
to himself — with his generous impulses undisciplined, so 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


to speak — at the mercy of every wild wind that blows. 
Religious belief, of course, is a great ...” 

Councilor Mikulin glanced down his beard, and 
Razumov, whose tension was relaxed by that unex- 
pected and discursive turn, murmured, with gloomy 
discontent : 

“That man, Haldin, believed in God.” 

“Ah! You are aware,” breathed out Councilor 
Mikulin, making the point softly, as if with discretion, 
but making it, nevertheless, plainly enough, as if he, too, 
were put off his guard by Razumov’s remark. That last 
preserved an impassive, moody countenance, though he 
reproached himself bitterly for a pernicious fool, to have 
given thus an utterly false impression of intimacy. He 
kept his eyes on the floor. “ I must positively hold my 
tongue unless I am obliged to speak,” he admonished 
himself. And at once against his will the question 
“Hadn’t I better tell him everything?” presented itself 
with such force that he had to bite his lower lip. Coun- 
cilor Mikulin could not, however, have nourished any 
hope of confession. He went on: 

“You tell me more than his judges were able to get out 
of him. He was judged by a commission of three. He 
would tell them absolutely nothing. I have the report 
of the interrogatories here by me. After every question 
there stands, ‘Refuses to answer — refuses to answer.’ 
It’s like that, page after page. You see, I have been in- 
trusted with some further investigations around and 
about this affair. He has left me nothing to begin my 
investigations on. A hardened miscreant. And so, you 
say, he believed in . . .” 

Again Councilor Mikulin glanced down his beard with a 
faint grimace; but he did not pause for long. Remark- 
ing, with a shade of scorn, that blasphemers, also, had 
that sort of belief, he concluded by supposing that Mr. 
Razumov had conversed frequently with Haldin on the 
subject. 


8 ^ 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


“No,” said Razumov, loudly, without looking up. 
“He talked and I listened. That is not a conversa- 
tion.” 

“Listening is a great art,” observed Mikulin, paren- 
thetically. 

“And getting people to talk is another,” mumbled 
Razumov. 

“Well, no — that is not very difficult,” Mikulin said, in- 
nocently, “except, of course, in special cases. For in- 
stance, this Haldin. Nothing could induce him to talk. 
He was brought four times before the delegated judges. 
Four secret interrogatories — and even during the last, 
when your personality was put forward . . .” 

“My personality put forward,” repeated Razumov, 
raising his head brusquely. “ I don’t understand.” 

Councilor Mikulin turned squarely to the table, and, 
taking up some sheets of gray foolscap, dropped them 
one after another, retaining only the last in his hand. 
He held it before his eyes while speaking. 

“ It was — you see — judged necessary. In a case of that 
gravity no means of action upon the culprit should be 
neglected. You understand that yourself, I am certain.” 

Razumov stared with enormous wide eyes at the side 
view of Councilor Mikulin, who now was not looking at 
him at all. 

“ So it was decided {I was consulted by General T ) 

that a certain question should be put to the accused. 

But in deference to the earnest wishes of Prince K 

your name has been kept out of the documents and even 
from the very knowledge of the judges themselves. 

Prince K recognized the propriety, the necessity of 

what we proposed to do, but he was concerned for your 
safety. Things do leak out — that we can’t deny. One 
cannot always answer for the discretion of inferior 
officials. There was, of course, the secretary of the 
special tribunal and one or two gendarmes in the room. 

Moreover, as I have said, in deference to Prince K , 

89 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


even the judges themselves were to be left in ignorance. 
The question, ready framed, was sent to them by 

General T (I wrote it out with my own hand) , with 

instructions to put it to the prisoner the very last of 
all. Here it is.” 

Councilor Mikulin threw back his head into proper 
focus and went on reading, monotonously : Question. — 
Has the man, well known to you, in whose rooms you 
remained for several hours on Monday and on whose in- 
formation you have been arrested — has he had any pre- 
vious knowledge of your intention to commit a political 
murder? . . . Prisoner refuses to reply. 

“‘Question repeated. Prisoner preserves the same 
stubborn silence. 

“ ‘ The venerable Chaplain of the Fortress being then 
admitted and exhorting the prisoner to repentance, en- 
treating him also to atone for his crime by an unreserved 
and full confession which should help to liberate from 
the sin of rebellion against the Divine laws and the sacred 
Majesty of the Ruler, our Christ-loving land, the pris- 
oner opens his lips for the first time during this morning’s 
audience, and in a loud, clear voice rejects the venerable 
Chaplain’s ministrations. 

“ ‘ At eleven o’clock the Court pronounces in summary 
form the death sentence. 

“ ‘ The execution is fixed for four o’clock in the after- 
noon, subject to further instructions from superior 
authorities.’ ” 

Councilor Mikulin dropped the page of foolscap, 
glanced down his beard, and, turning to Razumov, added, 
in an easy, explanatory tone : 

“We saw no object in delaying the execution. The 
order to carry out the sentence was sent by telegraph at 
noon. I wrote out the telegram myself. He was hanged 
at four o’clock this afternoon.” 

The definite information of Haldin’s death gave 
Razumov that feeling of general lassitude which follows 

90 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


a great exertion or a great excitement. He kept very 
still on the sofa, but a murmur escaped him, 

“He had a belief in a future existence.” 

Councilor Mikulin shrugged his shoulders slightly, and 
Razumov got up with an effort. There was nothing now 
to stay for in that room. Haldin had been hanged at 
four o’clock. There could be no doubt of that. He had, 
it seemed, entered upon his future existence, long boots, 
Astrakhan fur cap, and all, down to the very leather strap 
round his waist. A flickering, vanishing sort of ex- 
istence. It was not his soul, it was his mere phantom 
that he left behind on this earth, thought Razumov, 
smiling caustically to himself while he crossed the room, 
utterly forgetful of where he was and of Councilor 
Mikulin’s existence. This last could have set a lot of 
bells ringing all over the building without leaving his 
chair. He let Razumov come up quite to the door before 
he spoke. 

“Come, Kirylo Sidorovitch, what are you doing?” 

Razumov turned his head and looked at him in silence. 
He was not in the least disconcerted. Councilor 
Mikulin’s arms were stretched out on the table before 
him, and his body leaned forward a little with an effort 
of his dim gaze. 

“ Was I actually going to clear out like this ?” Razumov 
wondered at himself with an impassive countenance. 
And he was aware of this impassiveness concealing a 
lucid astonishment. 

“Evidently I was going out if he had not spoken,” he 
thought . ‘ ‘ What would he have done then ? I must end 

this affair one way or another. I must make him show 
his hand.” 

For a moment longer he reflected behind the mask, as 
it were, then let go the door-handle and came back to 
the middle of the room. 

“I’ll tell you what you think,” he said, explosively, 
but not raising his voice. “You think that you are 

91 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


dealing with a secret accomplice of that unhappy man. 
No, I do not know that he was unhappy. He did not 
tell me. He was a wretch, from my point of view, be- 
cause to keep alive a false idea is a greater crime than 
to kill a man. I suppose you will not deny that? I 
hated him! Visionaries work everlasting evil on earth. 
Their Utopias inspire in the mass of mediocre minds a 
disgust of reality and a contempt for the secular logic of 
human development.” 

Razumov shrugged his shoulders and stared. “What 
a tirade!” he thought. The silence and immobility of 
Councilor Mikulin impressed him. The bearded bureau- 
crat sat at his post, mysteriously self-possessed, like an 
idol with dim, unreadable eyes. Razumov’s voice 
changed involuntarily. 

“If you were to ask me where is the necessity of my 
hate for such as Haldin, I would answer you — there is 
nothing sentimental in it. I did not hate him because 
he had committed the crime of murder. Abhorrence is 
not hate. I hated him simply because I am sane. It 
is in that character that he outraged me. His death ...” 

Razumov felt his voice growing thick in his throat. 
The dimness of Councilor Mikulin’s eyes seemed to 
spread all over his face and made it indistinct to Razu- 
mov’s sight. He tried to disregard these phenomena. 

“Indeed,” he pursued, pronouncing each word care- 
fully, “what is his death to me? If he were lying here 
on the floor I could walk over his breast. . . . The fellow 
is a mere phantom. ...” 

Razumov’s voice died out very much against his 
will. Mikulin behind the table did not allow himself 
the slightest movement. The silence lasted for some 
little time before Razumov could go on again. 

“He went about talking of me. . . . Those intellec- 
tual fellows sit in each other’s rooms and get drunk on 
foreign ideas in the same way young Guard’s officers treat 
each other with foreign wines. Merest debauchery. 

92 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


. . . Upon my word” — Razumov, enraged by a sudden 
recollection of Ziemianitch, lowered his voice forcibly — 
” upon my word we Russians are a drunken lot. Intoxi- 
cation of some sort we must have : to get ourselves wild 
with sorrow or maudlin with resignation; to lie inert like 
a log or set fire to the house. What is a sober man to do, 
I should like to know? To cut oneself entirely from 
one’s kind is impossible. To live in a desert one must be 
a saint. But if a drunken man runs out of the grog- 
shop, falls on your neck, and kisses you on both cheeks 
because something about your appearance has taken 
his fancy, what then — kindly tell me? You may break, 
perhaps, a cudgel on his back and yet not succeed in beat- 
ing him off. . . .” 

Councilor Mikulin raised his hand and passed it down 
his face deliberately. 

“That’s ... of course,” he said, in an undertone. 

The quiet gravity of that gesture made Razumov 
pause. It was so unexpected, too. What did it mean? 
It had an alarming aloofness. Razumov remembered 
his intention of making him show his hand. 

“I have said all this to Prince K ,” he began, with 

assumed indifference, but lost it on seeing Councilor 
Mikulin ’s slow nod of assent. “You know it? You’ve 
heard. . . . Then why should I be called here to be told 
of Haldin’s execution? Did you want to confront me 
with his silence now that the man is dead? What is 
his silence to me ? This is incomprehensible. You want 
in some way to shake my moral balance.” 

“No. Not that,” murmured Councilor Mikulin, just 
audibly. “The service you have rendered is ap- 
preciated . . .” 

“Is it?” interrupted Razumov, ironically. 

“. . . And your position, too.” Councilor Mikulin 
did not raise his voice. “But only think! You fall into 
Prince K ’s study as if from the sky with your start- 

ling information. . . . You are studying yet, Mr. Raz- 

93 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


umov, but we are serving already, don’t forget that. 

, . . And naturally some curiosity was bound to . . 

Councilor Mikulin looked down his beard. Razumov’s 
lips trembled. 

“ An occurrence of that sort marks a man,” the homely 
murmur went on. “I admit I was curious to see you. 

General T thought it would be useful, too. . . . 

Don’t think I am incapable of understanding your senti- 
ments. When I was young like you I studied . . .” 

“Yes. You wished to see me,” said Razumov, in a 
tone of profound distaste. “Naturally you have the 
right — I mean the power. It all amounts to the same 
thing. But it is perfectly useless, if you were to look at 
me and listen to me for a year. I begin to think there 
is something about me which people don’t seem able 
to make out. It’s unfortunate. I imagine, however, 
that Prince K understands. He seemed to.” 

Councilor Mikulin moved slightly and spoke : 

“Prince K is aware of everything that is being 

done, and I don’t mind informing you that he approved 
my intention of becoming personally acquainted with 
you.” 

Razumov concealed an immense disappointment 
under the accents of railing surprise. 

“So he is curious, too! . . . Well — after all, Prince 
K knows me very little. It is really very unfor- 

tunate for me, but — it is not exactly my fault.” 

Councilor Mikulin raised a hasty deprecatory hand and 
inclined his head slightly over his shoulder. 

“ Now, Mr. Razumov — is it necessary to take it in that 
way? Everybody, I am sure, can . . 

He glanced rapidly down his beard, and when he 
looked up again there was for a moment an interested 
expression in his misty gaze. Razumov discouraged it 
with a cold, repellent smile. 

“No. That’s of no importance, to be sure — except 
that in respect of all this curiosity being aroused by a 

94 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


very simple matter. . . . What is to be done with it? 
It is unappeasable. I mean to say there is nothing to 
appease it with. I happen to have been born a Russian 
with patriotic instincts — whether inherited or not, I am 
not in a position to say.” 

Razumov spoke consciously, with elaborate steadi- 
ness: 

‘‘Yes, patriotic instincts developed by a faculty of 
independent thinking — of detached thinking. In that 
respect I am more free than any social democratic 
revolution could make me. It is more than probable 
that I don’t think exactly as you are thinking. Indeed, 
how could it be? You would think most likely at this 
moment that I am elaborately lying to cover up the 
track of my repentance.” 

Razumov stopped. His heart had grown too big for 
his breast. Councilor Mikulin did not flinch. 

“ Why so ?” he said, simply. “ I assisted personally at 
the search of your rooms. I looked through all the 
papers myself. I have been greatly impressed by a sort 
of political confession of faith. A very remarkable doc- 
ument. Now, may I ask for what purpose . . .” 

‘‘To deceive the police, naturally,” said Razumov, 
savagely. . . . ‘‘What is all this mockery? Of course 
you can send me straight from this room to Siberia. 
That would be intelligible. To what is intelligible I can 
submit. But I protest against this comedy of persecu- 
tion. The whole affair is becoming too comical alto- 
gether for my taste. A comedy of errors, phantoms, 
and suspicions. It’s positively indecent. . . .” 

Councilor Mikulin turned an attentive ear. 

‘‘Did you say phantoms?” he murmured. 

“I could walk over dozens of them.” Razumov, with 
an impatient wave of his hand, went on headlong: ‘‘ But, 
really, I must claim the right to be done once for all with 
that man. And in order to accomplish this I shall take 
the liberty ...” 


95 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


Razumov, on his side of the table, bowed slightly to 
the seated bureaucrat. 

. To retire — simply to retire,” he finished, with 
great resolution. 

He walked to the door, thinking, ” Now he must show 
his hand. He must ring and have me arrested before I 
am out of the building, or he must let me go. And 
either way ...” 

An unhurried voice said: 

‘ ‘ Kirylo Sidoro vitch . ’ ’ 

Razumov, at the door, turned his head. 

“To retire,” he repeated. 

“Where to?” asked Councilor Mikulin, softly. 


PART SECOND 


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1 


I N the conduct of an invented story there are, no 
doubt, certain proprieties to be observed for the 
sake of clearness and effect. A man of imagination, 
however inexperienced in the art of narrative, has his 
instinct to guide him in the choice of his words and in 
the development of the action. A grain of talent ex- 
cuses many mistakes. But this is not a work of imagina- 
tion; I have no talent; my excuse for this undertaking 
lies not in its art, but in its artlessness. Aware of my 
limitations and strong in the sincerity of my purpose, I 
would not try (were I able) to invent anything. I push 
my scruples so far that I would not even invent a 
transition. 

Dropping, then, Mr. Razumov’s record at the point 
where Councilor Mikulin’s question “Where to?” comes 
with its air of an insoluble problem, I shall simply say 
that I made the acquaintance of these ladies about six 
months before that time. By “these ladies” I mean, 
of course, the mother and the sister of the unfortunate 
Haldin. 

By what arguments he had induced his mother to sell 
their little property and go abroad for an indefinite time, 
I cannot tell precisely. I have an idea that Mrs. Haldin, 
at her son's wish, would have set fire to her house and 
emigrated to the moon without any sign of surprise 
or apprehension; and that Miss Haldin — Nathalie, ca- 
ressingly Natalka — would have given her assent to the 
scheme. 

Their proud devotion to that young man became clear 
99 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


to me in a very short time. Following his directions, 
they went straight to Switzerland — to Zurich — where 
they remained the best part of a year. From Zurich, 
which they did not like, they came to Geneva. A friend 
of mine in Lausanne, a lecturer in history at the Univer- 
sity (he had married a Russian lady, a distant connection 
of Mrs. Haldin’s), wrote to me suggesting I should call 
on these ladies. It was a very kindly meant business 
suggestion. Miss Haldin wishes to go through a course of 
reading the best English authors with a competent teacher. 

Mrs. Haldin received me very kindly. Her bad 
French, of which she was smilingly conscious, did away 
with the formality of the first interview. She was a 
tall woman in a black silk dress. A wide brow, regular 
features, and delicately cut lips testified to her past 
beauty. She sat upright in an easy-chair, and in a rather 
weak, gentle voice told me that her Natalka simply 
thirsted after knowledge. Her thin hands were lying 
on her lap, her facial immobility had in it something 
monachal. “In Russia,” she went on, “all knowledge 
was tainted with falsehood. Not chemistry and all 
that,” she explained. The government corrupted the 
teaching for its own purposes. Both her children felt 
that. Her Natalka had obtained a diploma of a superior 
school for women, and her son was a student at the St. 
Petersburg University. He had a brilliant intellect, a 
most noble, unselfish nature, and he was the oracle of 
his comrades. Early next year, she hoped, he would 
join them and they would then go to Italy together. 
In any other country but their own she would have 
been certain of a great future for a man with the extra- 
ordinary abilities and the lofty character of her son — 
but in Russia. . . . 

The young lady, sitting by the window, turned her 
head and said: 

“Come, mother. Even with us things change with 
years.” 


lOO 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


Her voice was deep, almost harsh, and yet caressing in 
its harshness. She had a dark complexion, with red lips 
and a full figure. She gave the impression of strong 
vitality. The old lady sighed. 

“You are both young — you two. It is easy for you to 
hope. But I, too, am not hopeless. Indeed, how could 
I be with a son like this ? “ 

I addressed Miss Haldin, asking her what authors she 
wished to read. She directed upon me her gray eyes, 
shaded by black eyelashes, and I became aware, not- 
withstanding my years, how attractive physically her 
personality could be to a man capable of appreciating in 
a woman something else than the mere grace of feminin- 
ity. Her glance was as direct and trustful as that of a. 
young man yet unspoiled by the world’s wise lessons. 
And it was intrepid, but in this intrepidity there was 
nothing aggressive. A naive, yet thoughtful, assurance 
is a better definition. She had reflected already (in 
Russia the young begin to think early), but she had 
never known deception as yet, because, obviously, she 
had never yet fallen under the sway of passion. She 
was — to look at her was enough — very capable of being 
roused by the idea or simply by a person. At least, so I 
judged with I believe an unbiased mind; for clearly my 
person could not be the person — and as to my ideas ! . . . 

But we became excellent friends in the course of our 
reading. It was very pleasant. Without fear of pro- 
voking a smile, I shall confess that I became very much 
attached to that young girl. At the end of four months 
I told her that now she could very well go on reading 
English by herself. It was time for the teacher to de- 
part. My pupil looked unpleasantly surprised. 

Mrs. Haldin, with her immobility of feature and 
kindly expression of the eyes, uttered from her arm- 
chair in her uncertain French: ''Mats I' ami reviendra.'* 
And so it was settled. I returned — not four times a 
week as before, but pretty frequently. In the autumn 

lOI 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


we made some short excursions together in company 
with other Russians. My friendship with these ladies 
had given me a standing in the Russian colony which 
otherwise I could not have had. 

The day I saw in the papers the news of Mr. de P ’s 

assassination — it was a Sunday — I met the ladies in the 
street and walked with them for some distance. Mrs. 
Haldin wore a heavy gray cloak, I remember, over her 
black silk dress, and her fine eyes met mine with a very 
quiet expression. 

“We have been to the late service,” she said. “Na- 
talka came with me. Her girl friends, the students here, 
of course, don’t . . . With us in Russia the Church is 
so identified with oppression that it seems almost neces- 
sary when one wishes to be free in this life to give up 
all hope of a future existence. But I cannot give up 
praying for my son.” 

She added, with a sort of stony grimness, coloring 
slightly, and in French: ''Ce n'est pent etre qu’une habi- 
tude” (“It may be only habit.”) 

Miss Haldin was carrying the prayer-book. She did 
not glance at her mother. 

“You and Victor are both profound believers,” she said. 

I communicated to them the news from their coun- 
try which I had just read in a caf4. For a whole minute 
we walked together fairly briskly in silence. Then Mrs. 
Haldin murmured: 

“There will be more trouble, more persecutions for 
this. They may be even closing the University. There 
is neither peace nor rest in Russia for one but in the 
grave.” 

“Yes. The way is hard,” came from the daughter, 
looking straight before her at the Chain of Jura covered 
with snow, like a white wall closing the end of the 
street. “But concord is not so very far off.” 

“That is what my children think,” observed Mrs. 
Haldin to me. 


X02 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


I did not conceal my feeling that these were strange 
times to talk of concord. Nathalie Haldin surprised me 
by saying as if she had thought very much on the 
subject, that the Occidentals did not understand the 
situation. She was very calm and youthfully superior. 

“You think it is a class conflict, or a conflict of in- 
terests, as social contests are with you in Europe. But 
it is not that at all. It is something quite different.” 

“ It is quite possible that I don’t understand,” I admitted. 

That propensity of lifting every problem from the 
plane of the understandable by means of some sort of 
mystic expression is very Russian. I knew her well 
enough to have discovered her scorn for all the practical 
forms of political liberty known to the Western world. 
I suppose one must be a Russian to understand Russian 
simplicity, a terrible, corroding simplicity in which 
mystic phrases clothe a naive and hopeless cynicism. 
I think sometimes that the psychological secret of the 
profound difference of that people consists in this that 
they detest life, the irremediable life of the earth as it 
is, whereas we Westerners cherish it with perhaps an 
equal exaggeration of its sentimental value. But this is 
a digression indeed. . . . 

I helped these ladies into the tram-car, and they asked 
me to call in the afternoon. At least Mrs. Haldin asked 
me as she climbed up, and her Natalka smiled down at 
the dense Westerner indulgently from the rear platform 
of the moving car. The light of the clear wintry fore- 
noon was softened in her gray eyes. 

■ Mr. Razumov’s record, like the open book of fate, re- 
vives for me the memory of that day as something 
startlingly pitiless in its freedom from all forebodings. 
Victor Haldin was still with the living, but with the liv- 
ing whose only contact with life is the expectation of 
death. He must have been already referring to the last 
of his earthly affections, the hours of that obstinate 
silence which for him was to be prolonged into eternity. 

8 103 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


That afternoon the ladies entertained a good many of 
their compatriots — more than was usual for them to re- 
ceive at one time ; and the drawing-room on the ground 
floor of a larg<e house on the Boulevard des Philosophes 
was very much crowded. 

I outstayed everybody, and, when I rose, Miss Haldin 
stood up, too. I took her hand and was moved to revert 
to that morning’s conversation in the street. 

“ Admitting that we Occidentals do not understand the 
character of your people . . I began. 

It was as if she had been prepared for me by some 
mysterious foreknowledge. She checked me gently: 

“Their impulses — their” — she sought the proper ex- 
pression and found it, but in French — “their mouve- 
ments d'dme'' 

Her voice was not much above a whisper. 

“Very well,” I said. “But still we are looking at a 
conflict. You say it is not a conflict of classes and not 
a conflict of interests. Suppose I admitted that. Are 
antagonistic ideas then to be reconciled more easily — can 
they be cemented with blood and violence into that con- 
cord which you proclaim to be so near?” 

She looked at me searchingly with her clear gray eyes, 
without answering my reasonable question — ^my obvious, 
my unanswerable question. 

“It is inconceivable,” I added, with something like 
annoyance. 

“Everything is inconceivable,” she said. “The 
whole world is inconceivable to the strict logic of ideas. 
And yet the world exists to our senses, and we exist in it. 
There must be a necessity superior to our conceptions. 
It is a very miserable and a very false thing to belong 
to the majority. We Russians shall find some better 
form of national freedom than an artificial conflict of 
parties — which is wrong, because it is a conflict, and 
contemptible because it is artificial. It is left for us 
Russians to discover a better way.” 

104 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 

Mrs. Hal din had been looking out of the window. She 
turned upon me the almost lifeless beauty of her face and 
the living benign glance of her big, dark eyes. 

“That’s what my children think,” she declared. 

“I suppose” — I addressed Miss Haldin — “that you 
will be shocked if I tell you that I haven’t understood — 
I won’t say a single word; I’ve understood all the words. 

. . . But what can be this era of disembodied concord 
you are looking forward to ? Life is a thing of form. It 
has its plastic shape and a definite intellectual aspect. 
The most idealistic conceptions of love and forbearance 
must be clothed in flesh, as it were, before they can be 
made understandable.” 

I took my leave of Mrs. Haldin, whose beautiful lips 
never stirred. She smiled with her eyes only. Nathalie 
Haldin went with me as far as the door, very amiable. 

“Mother imagines that I am the slavish echo of my 
brother Victor. It is not so. He understands me better 
than I can understand him. When he joins us and you 
come to know him you will see what an exceptional soul 
it is.” She paused. “He is not a strong man in the 
conventional sense, you know,” she added, “but his 
character is without a flaw.” 

“I believe that it will not be difficult for me to make 
friends with your brother Victor.” 

“Don’t expect to understand him quite,” she said, a 
little maliciously. “He is not at all — at all — Western 
at bottom.” 

And on this unnecessary warning I left the room with 
another bow in the doorway to Mrs. Haldin in her arm- 
chair by the window. The shadow of autocracy, all un- 
perceived by me, had already fallen upon the Boulevard 
des Philosophes, in the free independent and democratic 
city of Geneva, where there is a quarter called La Petite 
Russie. V^henever two Russians come together, the 
shadow of autocracy is with them, tinging their thoughts, 
their views, their most intimate feelings, their private 
loS 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


life, the public utterances — haunting the secret of their 
silences. 

What struck me next in the course of a week or so was 
the silence of these ladies. I used to meet them walking 
in the public garden near the University. They greeted 
me with their usual friendliness, but I could not help 
noticing their taciturnity. By that time it was generally 
known that the assassin of Mr. de P— — had been caught, 
judged, and executed. So much had been declared 
officially to the news agencies. But for the world at large 
he remained anonymous. The official secrecy had with- 
held his name from the public. I really cannot imagine 
for what reason. 

One day I saw Miss Haldin walking alone in the main 
alley of the bastions under the naked trees. 

“Mother is not very well,” she explained. 

As Mrs. Haldin had, it seemed, never had a day’s illness 
in her life, this indisposition was disquieting. It was 
nothing definite, too. 

“I think she is fretting because we have not heard 
from my brother for rather a long time.” 

“No news — good news,” I said, cheerfully, and we 
began to walk slowly side by side. 

“Not in Russia,” she breathed out so low that I only 
just caught the words. I looked at her with more 
attention. 

“You, too, are anxious? ” 

She admitted after a moment of hesitation that she 
was. 

“ It is really such a long time since we heard. ...” 

And before I could offer the usual banal suggestions 
she confided in me. 

“Oh! But it is much worse than that. I wrote to a 
family we know in Petersburg. They had not seen him 
for more than a month. They thought he was already 
with us. They were even offended a little that he should 
have left Petersburg without calling on them. The 

io6 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


husband of the lady went at once to his lodgings. Victor 
had left there and they did not know his address.” 

I remember her catching her breath rather pitifully. 
Her brother had not been seen at lectures for a very long 
time, either. He only turned up now and then at the 
University gate to ask the porter for his letters. And 
the gentleman friend was told that the student Haldin 
did not come to claim the last two letters for him. But 
the police came to inquire if the student Haldin ever re- 
ceived any correspondence at the University, and took 
them away. 

‘‘My two last letters,” she said. 

We faced each other. A few snowflakes fluttered 
under the naked boughs. The sky was dark. 

‘‘What do you think could have happened?” I asked. 

Her shoulders moved slightly. 

‘‘One can never tell — in Russia.” 

I saw then the shadow of autocracy lying upon Rus- 
sian lives in their submission or their revolt. I saw it 
touch her handsome open face nestled in a fur collar and 
darken her clear eyes that shone upon me brilliantly gray 
in the murky light of a beclouded inclement afternoon. 

‘‘Let us move on,” she said. ‘‘It is cold standing — 
to-day.” 

She shuddered a little and stamped her little feet. 
We moved briskly to the end of the alley and back to the 
great gates of the garden. 

‘‘Have you told your mother?” I ventured to ask. 

‘‘No. Not yet. I came out to walk off the impres- 
sion of this letter.” 

I heard a rustle of paper somewhere. It came from 
her muff. She had the letter with her in there. 

‘‘What is it that you are afraid of?” I asked. 

To us Europeans of the West all ideas of political plots 
and conspiracies seem childish, crude inventions for the 
theater or a novel. I did not like to be more definite in 
my inquiry. 

107 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


“For us — for my mother especially, what I am afraid 
of is incertitude. People do disappear. Yes, they do 
disappear. I leave you to imagine what it is — the 
cruelty of the dumb weeks — months — years! This 
friend of ours has abandoned his inquiries when he heard 
of the police getting hold of the letters. I suppose he 
was afraid of compromising himself. He has a wife and 
children — and why should he, after all . . . Moreover, 
he is without influential connections and not rich. 
What could he do? . . . Yes, I am afraid of silence — for 
my poor mother. She won’t be able to bear it. For 
my brother I am afraid of’’ — she became almost in- 
distinct — “of anything.’’ 

We were now near the gate opposite the theater. She 
raised her voice. 

“But lost people do turn up even in Russia. Do you 
know what my last hope is ? Perhaps the next thing we 
know, we shall see him walking into our rooms.’’ 

I raised my hat and she passed out of the gardens, 
graceful and strong, after a slight movement of the head 
to me, her hands in the muff, crumpling the cruel 
Petersburg letter. 

On returning home I opened the newspaper I receive 
from London, and glancing down the correspondence 
from Russia — not the telegrams, but the correspondence 
— the first thing that caught my eye was the name of 
Haldin. Mr. de P ’s death was no longer an actual- 

ity, but the enterprising correspondent was proud of 
having ferreted out some unofficial information about 
that fact of modern history. He had got hold of Haldin’s 
name and had picked up the story of the midnight arrest 
in the street. But the sensation from a journalistic 
point of view was already well in the past. He did 
not allot to it more than twenty lines out of a full 
column. It was quite enough to give me a sleepless 
night. I perceived that it would have been a sort of 
treason to let Miss Haldin come without preparation 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


upon that journalistic discovery, which would infallibly 
be reproduced on the morrow by French and Swiss news- 
papers. I had a very bad time of it till the morning, 
wakeful with nervous worry and nightmarish with the 
feeling of being mixed up with something theatrical and 
morbidly affected. The incongruity of such a complica- 
tion in those two women’s lives was sensible to me all 
night in the form of absolute anguish. It seemed due 
to their refined simplicity that it should remain con- 
cealed from them forever. At an unconscionably early 
hour, at the door of their apartment, I felt as if I were 
about to commit an act of vandalism. . . . 

The middle-aged servant woman led me into the 
drawing-room, where there was a duster on a chair and a 
broom leaning against the center table. The motes 
danced in the sunshine; I regretted I had not written a 
letter instead of coming myself, and was thankful for 
the brightness of the day. Miss Haldin, in a plain black 
dress, came lightly out of her mother’s room with a fixed, 
uncertain smile on her lips. 

I pulled the paper out of my pocket. I did not 
imagine that a number of the Standard could have the 
effect of Medusa’s head. Her face went stony in a 
moment — her eyes — her limbs. The most terrible thing 
was that, being stony, she remained alive. One was con- 
scious of her palpitating heart. I hope she forgave me 
the delay of my clumsy circumlocution. It was not very 
prolonged; she could not have kept so still from head to 
foot for more than a second or two, and then I heard her 
draw a breath. As if the shock had paralyzed her moral 
resistance, and affected the firmness of her muscles, the 
contours of her face seemed to have given way. She 
was frightfully altered. She looked aged-ruined. But 
only for a moment. She said, with decision: 

“ I am going to tell my mother at once.” 

“Would that be safe in her state?” I objected. 

“What can be worse than the state she has been in 
109 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


for the last month ? We understand this in another way. 
The crime is not at his door. Don’t imagine I am de- 
fending him before you.” 

She went to the bedroom door, then came back to ask 
me in a low murmur not to go away till she returned. 
For twenty interminable minutes not a sound reached 
me. At last Miss Haldin came out and walked across 
the room with her quick, light step. When she reached 
the arm-chair she dropped into it heavily, as if com- 
pletely exhausted. 

Mrs. Haldin, she told me, had not shed a tear. She 
was sitting up in bed, and her immobility, her silence, 
were very alarming. At last she lay down gently and 
had motioned her daughter away. 

“She will call me in presently,” added Miss Haldin. 
“I left a bell near the bed.” 

I confess that my very real sympathy had no stand- 
point. The Western readers for whom this story is 
written will understand what I mean. It was, if I may 
say so, the want of experience. Death is a remorseless 
spoliator. The anguish of irreparable loss is familiar to 
us all. There is no life so lonely as to be safe against that 
experience. But the grief I had brought to these two 
ladies had gruesome associations. It had the associa- 
tions of bombs and gallows — a lurid, Russian coloring 
which made the complexion of my sympathy uncertain. 

I was grateful to Miss Haldin for not embarrassing me 
by an outward display of deep feeling. I admired her 
for that wonderful command over herself, even while I 
was a little frightened at it. It was the stillness of a 
great tension. What if it should suddenly snap ? Even 
the door of Mrs. Haldin’s room, with the old mother alone 
in there, had a rather awful aspect. 

Nathalie Haldin murmured, sadly: 

“I suppose you are wondering what my feelings are?” 

Essentially that was true. It was that very wonder 
which unsettled my sympathy of a dense Occidental, 
no 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


I could get hold of nothing but of some commonplace 
phrases, those futile phrases that give the measure of 
our impotence before each other’s trials. I mumbled 
something to the effect that for the young life held its 
hopes and compensations. It held duties too — but of 
that I was certain it was not necessary to remind 
her. 

She had a handkerchief in her hands, and pulled at it 
nervously. 

“I am not likely to forget my mother,” she said. 
“We used to be three. Now we are two — two women. 
She’s not so very old. She may live quite a long time 
yet. What have we to look for in the future ? For what 
hope and what consolation?” 

“You must take a wider view,” I said, resolutely, 
thinking that with this exceptional creature this was 
the right note to strike. She looked at me steadily for a 
moment, and then the tears she had been keeping down 
flowed unrestrained. She jumped up and stood in the 
window with her back to me. 

I slipped away without attempting even to approach 
her. Next day I was told at the door that Mrs. Haldin 
was better. The middle-aged servant remarked that a 
lot of people — Russians — had called that day, but Miss 
Haldin had not seen anybody. A fortnight later, when 
making my daily call, I was asked in and found Mrs. 
Haldin sitting in her usual place by the window. 

At first one would have thought that nothing was 
changed. I saw across the room the familiar profile, a 
little sharper in outline and overspread by a uniform 
pallor, as might have been expected in an invalid. But 
no disease could have accounted for the change in her 
black eyes, smiling no longer with gentle irony. She 
raised them as she gave me her hand. I observed the 
three-weeks’-old number of the Standard folded, with the 
correspondence from Russia uppermost, lying on a little 
table by the side of the arm-chair. Mrs. Haldin’s voice 

III 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


was startlingly weak and colorless. Her first words to 
me framed a question. 

“Has there been anything more in your newspapers?” 

I released her long, emaciated hand, shook my head 
negatively, and sat down. 

“The English press is wonderful. Nothing can be 
kept secret from it, and all the world must hear. Only 
our Russian news is not always easy to understand. 
Not always easy. . . . But English mothers do not look 
for news like that. ...” 

She laid her hand on the newspaper and took it away 
again. I said: 

“We, too, have had tragic times in our history.” 

“A long time ago. A very long time ago.” 

“Yes.” 

“There are nations that have made their bargain with 
fate,” said Miss Haldin, who had approached us. “We 
need not envy them.” 

“Why this scorn?” I asked, gently. “ It may be that 
our bargain was not a very lofty one. But the terms men 
and nations obtain from fate are hallowed by the price.” 

Mrs. Haldin turned her head away and looked out of 
the window for a time, with that new, somber, extinct 
gaze of her sunken eyes which so completely made an- 
other woman of her. 

“That Englishman, this correspondent,” she ad- 
dressed me suddenly, “do you think it is possible that 
he knew my son?” 

To this strange question I could only say that it was 
possible, of course. She saw my surprise. 

“If one knew what sort of man he was one could, 
perhaps, write to him,” she murmured. 

“Mother thinks,” explained Miss Haldin, standing 
between us, with one hand resting on the back of my 
chair, “that my poor brother, perhaps, did not try to 
save himself.” 

I looked up at Miss Haldin in sympathetic constema- 

II3 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


tion, but Miss Haldin was looking down calmly at her 
mother. The latter said: 

“We do not know the address of any of his friends. 
Indeed, we know nothing of his Petersburg comrades. 
He had a multitude of young friends, only he never spoke 
much of them. One could guess that they were his 
disciples and that they idolized him. But he was so 
modest. One would think that with so many de- 
voted . ...” 

She averted her head again and looked down the 
Boulevard des Philosophes, a singularly arid and dusty 
thoroughfare, where nothing could be seen at the moment 
but two dogs, a little girl in a pinafore hopping on one 
leg, and in the distance a workman wheeling a bicycle. 

“Even among the apostles of Christ there was found 
a Judas,” she whispered as if to herself, but with the 
evident intention to be heard by me. 

The Russian visitors assembled in little knots, con- 
versed amongst themselves meantime in low murmurs 
and with brief glances in our direction. It was a great 
contrast to the usual loud volubility of these gatherings. 
Miss Haldin followed me into the anteroom. 

“People will come,” she said. “We cannot shut the 
door in their faces.” 

While I was putting on my overcoat she began to talk 
to me of her mother. Poor Mrs. Haldin was fretting 
after more news. She wanted to go on hearing about 
her unfortunate son. She could not make up her mind 
to abandon him quietly to the dumb unknown. She 
would persist in pursuing him in there through the long 
days of motionless silence face to face with the empty 
Boulevard des Philosophes. She could not understand 
why he had not escaped — ^as so many other revolutionists 
and conspirators had managed to escape in other in- 
stances of that kind. It was really inconceivable that 
the means of secret revolutionary organizations should 
have failed so inexcusably to preserve her son. But in 

113 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


reality the inconceivable that staggered her mind was 
nothing but the cruel audacity of Death passing over 
her head to strike at that young and precious heart. 

Miss Haldin mechanically, with an absorbed look, 
handed me my hat. I understood from her that the 
poor woman was possessed by the somber and simple 
idea that her son must have perished because he did not 
want to be saved. It could not have been that he 
despaired of his country’s future. That was impossible. 
Was it possible that his mother and sister had not known 
how to merit his confidence; and that, after having done 
what he was compelled to do, his spirit became crushed 
by an intolerable doubt, his mind distracted by a sudden 
mistrust ? 

I was very much shocked by this piece of ingenu- 
ity. 

“ Our three lives were like that !” Miss Haldin twined 
the fingers of both her hands together in demonstration, 
then separated them slowly, looking straight into my 
face. “That’s what poor mother found to torment her- 
self and me with, for all the years to come,” added this 
strange girl. At that moment her indefinable charm was 
revealed to me in the conjunction of passion and stoicism. 
I imagined what her life was likely to be by the side of 
Mrs. Haldin’s terrible immobility, inhabited by that 
fixed idea. But my concern was reduced to silence by 
my ignorance of her modes of feeling. Difference of 
nationality is a terrible obstacle for our complex Western 
natures. But Miss Haldin probably was too simple to 
suspect my embarrassment. She did not wait for me to 
say anything, but, as if reading my thoughts on my face, 
she went on, courageously: 

“ At first poor mother went numb, as our peasants say; 
then she began to think, and she will go on now thinking 
and thinking in that unfortunate strain. You see, your- 
self, how cruel that is. . . .” 

I never spoke with greater sincerity than when I 
114 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


agreed with her that it would be deplorable in the highest 
degree. She took an anxious breath. 

“But all these strange details in the English paper,” 
she exclaimed, suddenly. “What is the meaning of 
them? I suppose they are true? But is it not terrible 
that my poor brother should be caught wandering 
alone, as if in despair, about the streets at night? . . 

We stood so close to each other in the dark anteroom 
that I could see her biting her lower lip to suppress a dry 
sob. After a short pause she said: 

“I suggested to mother that he may have been be- 
trayed by some false friend or simply by some cowardly 
creature. It may be easier for her to believe that.” 

I understood now the poor woman’s whispered allusion 
to Judas. 

“ It may be easier,” I admitted, admiring inwardly the 
directness and the subtlety of the girl’s outlook. She 
was dealing with life as it was made for her by the 
political conditions of her country. She faced cruel 
realities, not morbid imaginings of her own making. I 
could not defend myself from a certain feeling of respect 
when she added, simply: 

“Time, they say, can soften every sort of bitterness. 
But I cannot believe that it has any power over remorse. 
It is better that mother should think some person guilty 
of Victor’s death than that she should connect it with a 
weakness of her son or a shortcoming of her own.” 

“But you, yourself, don’t suppose that . . .” I began. 

She compressed her lips and shook her head. She 
harbored no evil thoughts against any one, she declared 
— and perhaps nothing that happened was unnecessary. 
On these words, pronounced low and sounding mysterious 
in the half-obscurity of the anteroom, we parted with an 
expressive and warm handshake. The grip of her strong, 
shapely hand had a seductive frankness, a sort of ex- 
quisite virility. I do not know why she should have 
felt so friendly to me. It may be that she thought I 
IIS 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


understood her much better than I was able to do. The 
most precise of her sayings seemed always to me to have 
enigmatical prolongations, vanishing somewhere beyond 
my reach. I am reduced to suppose that she appre- 
ciated my attention and my silence. The attention she 
could see was quite sincere, so that the silence could not 
be suspected of coldness. It seemed to satisfy her. 
And it is to be noted that if she confided in me it was 
clearly not with the expectation of receiving advice, for 
which, indeed, she never asked. 


II 


O UR daily relations were interrupted at this period 
for something like a fortnight. I had to absent 
myself unexpectedly from Geneva. On my return I lost 
no time in directing my steps up the Boulevard des 
Philosophes. 

Through the open door of the drawing-room I was an- 
noyed to hear a visitor holding forth steadily in an 
unctuous, deep voice. 

Mrs. Haldin’s arm-chair by the window stood empty. 
On the sofa, Nathalie Haldin raised her charming gray 
eyes in a glance of greeting accompanied by the merest 
hint of a welcoming smile. But she made no movement. 
With her strong, white hands lying inverted in the lap of 
her mourning dress she faced a man who presented to me 
a robust back covered with black broadcloth and well 
in keeping with the deep voice. He turned his head 
sharply over his shoulder, but only for a moment. 

“Ah! your English friend. I know. I know. That’s 
nothing.” 

He wore spectacles with smoked glasses; a tall silk 
hat stood on the floor by the side of his chair. Flourish- 
ing slightly a big, soft hand, he went on with his discourse, 
precipitating his delivery a little more. 

“ I have never changed the faith I held while wander- 
ing in the forests and bogs of Siberia. It sustained 
me then— -it sustains me now. The great powers of 
Europe are bound to disappear — and the cause of their 
collapse will be very simple. They will exhaust them- 
selves struggling against their proletariate. In Russia it 
117 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


is different. In Russia we have no classes to combat 
each other, one holding the power of wealth, and the 
other mighty with the strength of numbers. We have 
only an unclean bureaucracy in the face of a people as 
great and as incorruptible as the ocean. No, we have no 
classes. But we have the Russian woman. The ad- 
mirable Russian woman! I receive most remarkable 
letters signed by women. So elevated in tone, so cou- 
rageous, breathing such a noble ardor of service! The 
greatest part of our hopes rests on women. I behold their 
thirst for knowledge. It is admirable. Look how they 
absorb, how they are making it their own. It is miracu- 
lous. But what is knowledge? ... I understand that 
you have not been studying anything especially — medi- 
cine, for instance. No ? That’s right. Had I been hon- 
ored by being asked to advise you on the use of your 
time when you arrived here, I would have been strongly 
opposed to such a course. Knowledge in itself is mere 
dross.” 

He had one of those bearded Russian faces without 
shape, a mere appearance of flesh and hair with not 
a single feature having any sort of character. His eyes 
being hidden by the dark glasses, there was an utter 
absence of all expression. I knew him by sight. He 
was a Russian refugee of mark. All Geneva knew his 
burly, black-coated figure. At one time all Europe was 
aware of the story of his life written by himself and 
translated into seven or more languages. In his youth 
he had led an idle, dissolute life. Then a society girl he 
was about to marry died suddenly, and thereupon he 
abandoned the world of fashion and began to conspire 
in a spirit of repentance, and, after that, his native 
autocracy took good care that the usual things should 
happen to him. He was imprisoned in fortresses, beaten 
within an inch of his life, and condemned to work in 
mines with common criminals. The great success of his 
book, however, was the chain. 

ii8 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 

I do not remember now the details of the weight and 
length of the fetters riveted on his limbs by an “Ad- 
ministrative” order, but it was, in the number of pounds 
and the thickness of links, an appalling assertion of the 
divine rights of autocracy. Appalling and futile, too, 
because this big man managed to carry off that simple 
engine of government with him into the woods. The 
sensational clink of these fetters is heard all through the 
chapters describing his escape — a subject of wonder to 
two continents. He had begun by concealing himself 
successfully from his guards in a hole on a river-bank. 
It was the end of day; with infinite labor he managed 
to free one of his legs. Meantime night fell. He was 
going to begin on his other leg when he was overtaken by 
a terrible misfortune. He dropped his file. 

All this is precise, yet symbolic; and the file had its 
pathetic history. It was given to him unexpectedly one 
evening by a quiet, pale-faced girl. The poor creature 
had come out to the mines to join one of his fellow-con- 
victs, a delicate young man, a mechanic and a social 
democrat, with broad cheek-bones and large, staring 
eyes. She had worked her way across half Russia and 
nearly the whole of Siberia to be near him, and, as it 
seems, with the hope of helping him to escape. But 
she arrived too late. Her lover had died only a week 
before. 

Through that obscure episode, as he says, in the his- 
tory of ideas in Russia, the file came into his hands, 
and inspired him with an ardent resolution to regain 
his liberty. When it slipped through his fingers it was 
as if it had gone straight into the earth. He could 
by no manner of means put his hand on it again in the 
dark. He groped systematically in the loose earth, in 
the mud, in the water; the night was passing meantime, 
the precious night on which he counted to get away into 
the forests, his only chance of escape. For a moment 
he was tempted by despair to give up, but, recalling the 
Q 119 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


quiet, sad face of the heroic girl, he felt profoundly 
ashamed of his weakness. She had selected him for the 
gift of liberty, and he must show himself worthy of the 
favor conferred by her feminine, indomitable soul. It 
appeared to be a sacred trust. To fail would have been 
a sort of treason against the sacredness of self-sacrifice 
and womanly love. 

There are in his book whole pages of self-analysis 
whence emerges like a white figure from a dark, con- 
fused sea the conviction of woman’s spiritual superiority 
— his new faith confessed since in several volumes. His 
first tribute to it, the great act of his conversion, was his 
extraordinary existence in the endless forests of the 
Okhotsk Province, with the loose end of the chain wound 
about his waist. A strip torn off his convict shirt se- 
cured the end firmly. Other strips fastened it at in- 
tervals up his left leg to deaden the clanking and to pre- 
vent the slack links from getting hooked in the bushes. 
He became very fierce. He developed an unsuspected 
genius for the arts of a wild and haunted existence. He 
learned to creep into villages without betraying his 
presence by anything more than an occasional faint 
jingle. He broke into outhouses with an axe he man- 
aged to purloin in a wood-cutters* camp. In the de- 
serted tracts of country he lived on wild berries and 
hunted for honey. His clothing dropped off him 
gradually. His naked, tawny figure, glimpsed vaguely 
through the bushes with a cloud of mosquitos and 
flies hovering about the shaggy head, spread tales of 
terror through whole districts. His temper grew 
savage as the days went by, and he was glad to dis- 
cover that there was so much of a brute in him. He 
had nothing else to put his trust in. For it was as 
though there had been two human beings indissolubly 
joined in that enterprise: the civilized man, the en- 
thusiast of advanced humanitarian ideals thirsting for 
the triumph of spiritual love and political liberty, and 
120 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


the stealthy primeval savage, pitilessly cunning in the 
preservation of his freedom from day to day like a 
tracked wild beast. 

The wild beast was making its way instinctively east- 
ward to the Pacific coast, and the civilized humani- 
tarian in fearful, anxious dependence, watched the pro- 
ceedings with awe. Through all these weeks he could 
never make up his mind to appeal to human com- 
passion. In the wary primeval savage this shyness 
might have been natural; but the other, too, the civilized 
creature, the thinker, the escaping “political,” had de- 
veloped an absurd form of morbid pessimism, a form of 
temporary insanity, originating, perhaps, in the physical 
worry and discomfort of the chain. These links, he 
fancied, made him odious to the rest of mankind. It 
was a repugnant and suggestive load. Nobody could 
feel any pity at the disgusting sight of a man escaping 
with a broken chain. His imagination became affected 
by his fetters in a precise, matter-of-fact manner. It 
seemed to him impossible that people could resist the 
temptation of fastening the loose end to a staple in the 
wall while they went for the nearest police official. 
Crouching in holes or hidden in thickets, he had tried to 
read the faces of unsuspecting free settlers working in 
the clearings or passing along the paths within a foot or 
two of his eyes. His feeling was that no man on earth 
could be trusted with the temptation of the chain. 

One day, however, he chanced to come upon a solitary 
woman. It was on an open slope of rough grass outside 
the forest. She sat on the bank of a narrow stream; 
she had a red handkerchief on her head and a small 
basket was lying on the ground near her hand. At a 
little distance could be seen a cluster of log cabins, with 
a water - mill over a dammed pool shaded by birch- 
trees and looking bright as glass in the twilight. He 
approached her silently, his hatchet stuck in his iron 
belt, a thick cudgel in his hand; there were leaves and 

I2I 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


bits of twig in his tangled hair, in his matted beard; 
bunches of rags he had wound round the links fluttered 
from his waist. A faint clink of his fetters made the 
woman turn her head. Too terrifled by this savage 
apparition to jump up or even to scream, she was yet too 
stout-hearted to faint. . . . Expecting nothing less than 
to be murdered on the spot, she covered her eyes to avoid 
the sight of the descending axe. When at last she found 
courage to look again, she saw the shaggy wild man 
sitting on the bank six feet away from her. His thin, 
sinewy arms hugged his naked legs; the long beard 
covered the knees on which he rested his chin; all 
these clasped, folded limbs, the bare shoulders, the 
wild head with red, staring eyes, shook and trembled 
violently while the bestial creature was making efforts 
to speak. It was six weeks since he had heard the 
sound of his own voice. It seemed as though he had 
lost the faculty of speech. He had become a dumb 
and despairing brute, till the woman’s sudden, un- 
expected cry of profound pity, the insight of her 
feminine compassion discovering the complex misery 
of the man under the terrifying aspect of the monster, 
restored him to the ranks of humanity. This point of 
view is presented in his book with a very effective 
eloquence. She ended, he says, by shedding tears over 
him, sacred, redeeming tears, while he also wept with 
joy in the manner of a converted sinner. Directing him 
to hide in the bushes and wait patiently (a police patrol 
was expected in the settlement), she went away toward 
the houses, promising to return at night. 

As if providentially appointed to be the newly wedded 
wife of the village blacksmith, the woman persuaded her 
husband to come out with her, bringing some tools of his 
trade — a hammer, a chisel, a small anvil. . . . “My fet- 
ters,” the book says, “were struck off on the banks of 
the stream, in the starlight of a calm night by an athletic, 
taciturn young man of the people, kneeling at my feet, 
122 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


while the woman, like a liberating genius, stood by with 
clasped hands.” Obviously a symbolic couple. At the 
same time they furnished his regained humanity with 
some decent clothing, and put heart into the new man 
by the information that the seacoast of the Pacific was 
only a very few miles away — it could be seen, in fact, 
from the top of the next ridge. . . . 

The rest of his escape does not lend itself to mystic 
treatment and symbolic interpretation. He ended by 
finding his way to the West by the Suez Canal route in 
the usual manner. Reaching the shores of South Europe, 
he sat down to write his autobiography — the great 
literary success of its year. This book was followed by 
other books, written with the declared purpose of 
elevating humanity. In these works he preached gener- 
ally the cult of the woman. For his own part he prac- 
tised it under the rites of special devotion to the tran- 
scendental merits of a certain Madame de S , a lady 

of advanced views, no longer very young, once upon a 
time the intriguing wife of a now dead and forgotten 
diplomat. Her loud pretensions to be one of the leaders 
of modern thought and of modem sentiment she shel- 
tered (like Voltaire and Madame de Stael) on the repub- 
lican territory of Geneva. Driving through the streets 
in her big landau, she exhibited, to the indifference of the 
natives and the stares of the tourists, a long-waisted, 
youthful figure of hieratic stiffness, with a pair of big, 
gleaming eyes, rolling restlessly behind a short veil of 
black lace which, coming down no farther than her 
vividly red lips, resembled a mask. Usually the ‘‘heroic 
fugitive” (this name was bestowed upon him in a review 
of the English edition of his book) accompanied her, 
sitting, portentously bearded and darkly bespectacled, 
not by her side, but opposite her, with his back to the 
horses. Thus facing each other, with no one else in the 
roomy carriage, their airings suggested a conscious pub- 
lic manifestation. Or it may have been unconscious. 

123 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


Russian simplicity often marches innocently on the edge 
of cynicism for some lofty purpose. But it is a vain 
enterprise for sophisticated Europe to try and understand 
these doings. Considering the air of gravity extending 
even to the physiognomy of the coachman and the action 
of the showy horses, this quaint display might have pos- 
sessed a mystic significance, but to the corrupt frivolity 
of a Western mind, like my own, it seemed hardly decent. 

However, it is not becoming for an obscure teacher of 
languages to criticize a “heroic fugitive” of world- wide 
celebrity. I was aware, from hearsay, that he was an 
industrious busybody, hunting up his compatriots in 
hotels, in private lodgings, and — I was told — con- 
ferring upon them the honor of his notice in public 
gardens when a suitable opening presented itself. I 
was under the impression that after a visit or two several 
months before, he had given up the ladies Haldin — no 
doubt reluctantly, for there could be no question of his 
being a determined person. It was, perhaps, to be ex- 
pected that he should reappear again on this terrible 
occasion, as a Russian and a revolutionist, to say the 
right thing, to strike the true, perhaps a comforting, 
note. But I did not like to see him sitting there. I 
trust that an unbecoming jealousy of my privileged posi- 
tion had nothing to do with it. I made no claim to a 
special standing for my silent friendship. Removed by 
the difference of age and nationality, as if into the 
sphere of another existence, I produced, even upon my- 
self, the effect of a dumb, helpless ghost, of an anxious, 
immaterial thing that could only hover about without 
the power to protect or guide by as much as a whisper. 
Since Miss Haldin, with her sure instinct, had refrained 
from introducing me to the burly celebrity, I would have 
retired quietly and returned later on had I not met a 
peculiar expression in her eyes which I interpreted as a 
request to stay, with the view, perhaps, of shortening an 
unwelcome visit. 


124 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 

He picked up his hat, but only to deposit it on his 
knees. 

“We shall meet again, Natalia Viktorovna. To-day I 
have called only to mark those feelings toward your 
honored mother and yourself, the nature of which you 
cannot doubt. I needed no urging, but Eleanor (Madame 

de S ) herself has, in a way, sent me. She extends 

to you the hand of feminine fellowship. There is posi- 
tively in all the range of human sentiments no joy and no 
sorrow that woman cannot understand, elevate, and 
spiritualize by her interpretation. That young man 
newly arrived from St. Petersburg I have mentioned to 
you is already under the charm.” 

At this point Miss Haldin got up abruptly. I was 
glad. He did not evidently expect anything so de- 
cisive, and, at first, throwing his head back, he tilted up 
his dark glasses with an air of bland curiosity. At last, 
recollecting himself, he stood up hastily, seizing his hat 
off his knees with great adroitness. 

“How is it, Natalia Viktorovna, that you have kept 
aloof so long from what, after all, is — let disparaging 
tongues say what they like — a unique center of intel- 
lectual freedom and of effort to shape a high conception 
of our future? In the case of your honored mother, 
I understand in a measure. At her age new ideas 
— new faces are not, perhaps . . . But you! Was 
it mistrust — or indifference? You must come out 
of your reserve. We Russians have no right to be re- 
served with each other. In our circumstances it is al- 
most a crime against humanity. The luxury of private 
grief is not for us. Nowadays the devil is not com- 
bated by prayers and fasting. And what is fasting, 
after all, but starvation ? You must not starve yourself, 
Natalia Viktorovna. Strength is what we want. Spirit- 
ual strength, I mean. As to the other kind, what could 
withstand us Russians if we only put it forth? Sin 
is different in our day, and the way of salvation for 

125 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


pure souls is different, too. It is no longer to be found 
in monasteries, but in the world, in the . . 

The deep sound seemed to rise from under the floor, 
and one felt steeped in it to the lips. Miss Hal din’s in- 
terruption resembled the effort of a drowning person to 
keep above water. She struck in with an accent of im- 
patience : 

“But, Peter Ivanovitch, I don’t mean to retire into a 
monastery. Who would look for salvation there?” 

“I spoke figuratively,” he boomed. 

“Well, then, I am speaking figuratively, too. But 
sorrow is sorrow and pain is pain in the old way. They 
make their demands upon people. One has got to face 
them the best way one can. I know that the blow 
which has fallen upon us so unexpectedly is only an 
episode in the fate of a people. You may rest assured 
that I don’t forget that. But just now I have to think of 
my mother. How can you expect me to leave her to 
herself? . . .” 

“That is putting it in a very crude way,” he protested, 
in his great, effortless voice. 

Miss Haldin did not wait for the vibration to die 
out: 

“ And run about visiting among a lot of strange people. 
The idea is distasteful for me; and I do not know what 
else you may mean?” 

He towered before her, enormous, deferential, cropped 
as close as a convict; and this big pinkish poll evoked 
for me the vision of a wild head with matted locks peering 
through parted bushes, glimpses of naked, tawny limbs, 
slinking behind the masses of sodden foliage under a 
cloud of flies and mosquitos. It was an involuntary 
tribute to the vigor of his writing. Nobody could 
doubt that he had wandered in Siberian forests, naked 
and girt with a chain. The black broadcloth coat in- 
vested his person with a character of common and 
austere decency — something recalling a missionary. 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


“Do you know what I want, Natalia Viktorovna?” 
he uttered, solemnly. “I want you to be a fanatic.” 

“A fanatic!” 

“Yes. Faith alone won’t do.” 

His voice dropped to a still lower tone. He raised for 
a moment one thick arm; the other remained hanging 
down against his thigh, with the fragile silk hat at the 
end. 

“ I shall tell you now something which I entreat you to 
ponder over carefully. Listen: we need a force that 
would move heaven and earth — nothing less.” 

The profound, subterranean note of this “nothing 
less” made one shudder, almost, like the deep muttering 
of wind in the pipes of an organ. 

“And are we to find that force in the salon of Madame 

de S ? Excuse me, Peter Ivanovitch, if I permit 

myself to doubt it. Is not that lady a woman of the 
great world, an aristocrat?” 

“Prejudice!” he cried. “You astonish me. And 
suppose she was all that ? She is also a woman of flesh 
and blood. There is always something to weigh down 
the spiritual side in all of us. But to make of it a 
reproach is what I did not expect from you. No! I did 
not expect that. One would think you have listened to 
some malevolent scandal.” 

“I have heard no gossip, I assure you. In our 
province how could we? But the world speaks of her. 
What can there be in common in a lady of that sort and 
an obscure country girl like me?” 

“She is a perpetual manifestation of a noble and 
peerless spirit,” he broke in. “Her charm — no, I shall 
not speak of her charm. But, of course, everybody who 
approaches her falls under the spell. . . . Contradictions 
vanish, trouble falls away from one. . . . Unless I am 
mistaken — ^but I never make a mistake in spiritual 
matters — you are troubled in your soul, Natalia Vikto- 
rovna.” 


127 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


Miss Haldin’s clear eyes looked straight at his soft, 
enormous face; I received the impression that behind 
those dark spectacles of his he could be as impudent as 
he chose. 

“Only the other evening, walking back to town from 
Chateau Borel with our latest interesting arrival from 
Petersburg, I could notice the powerful soothing in- 
fluence — I may say reconciling influence. . . . There he 
was, all these kilometers along the shores of the lake, 
silent, like a man who has been shown the way of peace. 
I could feel the leaven working in his soul, you under- 
stand. For one thing, he listened to me patiently. I, 
myself, was inspired that evening by the firm and ex- 
quisite genius of Eleanor — Madame de S , you know. 

It was a full moon, and I could observe his face. I can- 
not be deceived. ...” 

Miss Hal din, looking down, seemed to hesitate. 

“Well! I shall think of what you said, Peter Ivano- 
vitch. I shall try to call as soon as I can leave mother 
for an hour or two safely.” 

Coldly as these words were said, I was amazed at such 
a concession. He snatched her right hand with such 
fervor that I thought he was going to press it to his lips 
or his breast. But he only held it by the finger-tips in 
his great paw and shook it a little up and down while he 
delivered his last volley of words. 

“That’s right! That’s right! I haven’t obtained 
your full confidence as yet, Natalia Viktorovna, but that 
will come. All in good time. The sister of Victor Hal- 
din cannot be without importance. . . . It’s simply im- 
possible. And no woman can remain sitting on the 
steps. Flowers, tears, applause — that has had its time; 
it’s a medieval conception. The arena, the arena itself 
is the place for women!” 

He relinquished her hand with a flourish, as if giving 
it to her for a gift, and remained still, his head bowed 
in dignified submission before her femininity. 

128 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 

“The arena! ... You must descend into the arena, 
Natalia.” 

He stepped back a pace, bowed his enormous body, 
and was gone swiftly. The door fell behind him. But 
immediately the powerful resonance of his voice was 
heard addressing in the anteroom the middle-aged ser- 
vant woman who was letting him out. Whether he ex- 
horted her to descend into the arena I cannot tell. The 
thing sounded like a lecture, and the slight crash of the 
outer door cut it short suddenly. 


Ill 


W E remained looking at each other for a time. 

“Do you know who he is?” 

Miss Haldin, coming forward, put this question to 
me in English. 

I took her offered hand. 

“Everybody knows. He is a revolutionary feminist, a 
great writer, if you like, and — how shall I say it — the — 
the familiar guest of Madame de S ’s mystic revolu- 

tionary salon.” 

Miss Haldin passed her hand over her forehead. 
“You know he was with me for more than an hour 
before you came in. I was so glad mother was lying 
down. She has many nights without sleep, and then 
sometimes in the middle of the day she gets a rest of 
several hours. It is sheer exhaustion — ^but still I am 
thankful. ... If it were not for these intervals.” 

She looked at me and, with that extraordinary pene- 
tration which used to disconcert me, shook her head. 
“No. . . . She would not go mad.” 

“My dear young lady,” I cried, by way of protest, the 
more shocked because in my heart I was far from think- 
ing Mrs. Haldin quite sane. 

“You don’t know what a fine, clear intellect mother 
had,” continued Nathalie Haldin, with her calm, clear- 
eyed simplicity, which seemed to me always to have a 
quality of heroism. 

“I am sure . . .” I murmured. 

“ I darkened mother’s room and came out here. I’ve 
wanted for so long to think quietly.” 

130 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


She paused; then, without giving any sign of distress, 
added, “It’s so difficult,” and looked at me with a 
strange fixity, as if watching for a sign of dissent or 
surprise. 

I gave neither. I was irresistibly impelled to say: 

“The visit from that gentleman has not made it any 
3asier, I fear.” 

Miss Haldin stood before me with a peculiar expres- 
sion in her eyes. 

“ I don’t pretend to understand Peter Ivanovitch com- 
pletely. Some guide one must have, even if one does 
not wholly give up the direction of one’s conduct to him. 
I am an inexperienced girl, but I am not slavish. There 
has been too much of that in Russia ; yet, why should 
I not listen to him ? There is no harm in having one’s 
thoughts directed. But I don’t mind confessing to you 
that I have not been completely candid with Peter 
Ivanovitch. I don’t quite know what prevented me 
at the moment ...” 

She walked away suddenly from me to a distant part 
of the room, but it was only to open and shut a drawer 
in a bureau. She returned with a piece of paper in her 
hand. It was thin and blackened with close hand- 
writing. It was obviously a letter. 

“I wanted to read you the very words,” she said. 
“This is one of my poor brother’s letters. He never 
doubted. How could he doubt? They make only such 
a small handful, these miserable oppressors, before the 
unanimous will of our people.” 

“ Your brother believed in the power of a people’s will 
to achieve anything?” 

“It was his religion,” declared Miss Haldin. 

I looked at her calm face and her animated eyes. 

“Of course the will must be awakened, inspired, con- 
centrated,” she went on. “ That is the true task of real 
agitators. One has got to give up one’s life to it. The 
degradation of servitude; the absolutist lies must be 

131 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


uprooted and swept out. Reform is impossible. There 
is nothing to reform. There is no legality, there are no 
institutions. There are only arbitrary decrees. There 
is only a handful of cruel, perhaps blind, officials, 
against a nation.” 

The letter rustled slightly in her hand. I glanced 
down at the thin, flimsy, blackened pages whose very 
handwriting seemed cabalistic, incomprehensible to the 
experience of Western Europe. 

‘‘Stated like this,” I confessed, ‘‘the problem seems 
simple enough. But I fear I shall not see it solved. 
And if you go back to Russia I know that I shall not 
see you again. Yet once more I say ‘Go back!’ Don’t 
suppose that I am thinking of your preservation. No! 
I know that you will not be returning to personal safety. 
But I had much rather think of you in danger there than 
see you exposed to what may be met here.” 

‘‘I tell you what,” said Miss Haldin, after a moment 
of reflection. ‘‘ I believe that you hate revolution; you 
fancy it’s not quite honest. You belong to a people 
which has made a bargain with fate and wouldn’t like to 
be rude to it. But we have made no bargain. It was 
never offered to us — so much liberty for so much hard 
cash. You shrink from the idea of revolutionary action 
for those you think well of as if it were something — how 
shall I say it? — not quite decent.” 

I bowed my head. 

‘‘You are quite right,” I said. “I think very highly 
of you.” 

‘‘Don’t suppose I do not know it,” she began, hur- 
riedly. ‘‘Your friendship has been very valuable.” 

‘‘ I have done little else but look on.” 

She was a little flushed under the eyes. 

‘‘There is a way of looking on which is valuable. I 
have felt less lonely because of it. It’s difficult to 
explain.” 

‘‘Really? Well, I too have felt less lonely. That's 
132 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


easy to explain, though. But it won’t go on much 
longer. The last thing I want to tell you is this: in a 
real revolution — not a simple dynastic change or a mere 
reform of institutions — in a real revolution the best 
characters do not come to the front. A violent revolu- 
tion falls into the hands of narrow-minded fanatics and 
of tyrannical hypocrites at first. Afterward comes the 
turn of all the pretentious intellectual failures of the 
time. Such are the chiefs and the leaders. You will 
notice that I have left out the mere rogues. The 
scrupulous and the just, the noble, humane, and devoted 
natures, the unselfish and the intelligent may begin a 
movement — but it passes away from them. They are 
not the leaders of a revolution. They are its victims — 
the victims of disgust, of disenchantment — often of 
remorse. Hopes grotesquely betrayed, ideals carica- 
tured — that is the definition of revolutionary success. 
There have been in every revolution hearts broken by 
such successes. But enough of that. My meaning is 
that I don’t want you to be a victim.” 

“If I could believe all you have said I still wouldn’t 
think of myself,” protested Miss Haldin. ” I would take 
liberty from any hand as a hungry man would snatch at 
a piece of bread. The true progress must begin after. 
And for that the right men shall be found. They are 
already among us. One comes upon them in their 
obscurity, unknown, preparing themselves ...” 

She spread out the letter she had kept in her hand all 
the time, and, looking down at it : 

“Yes! One comes upon such men!” she repeated, 
and then read out the words: ‘“Unstained, lofty, and 
solitary existences.’” 

Folding up the letter while I looked at her interroga- 
tively, she explained: 

‘‘These are the words which my brother applies to a 
young man he came to know in St. Petersburg. An 
intimate friend, I suppose. It must be. His is the only 

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name my brother mentions in all his correspondence with 
me. Absolutely the only one, and — would you believe 
it? — the man is here. He arrived recently in Geneva.” 

“Have you seen him?” I inquired. “But of course 
you must have seen him.” 

“No! No! I haven’t! I didn’t know he was here. 
It’s Peter Ivanovitch himself who told me. You have 
heard him yourself mentioning a new arrival from 
Petersburg. . . . Well, that is the man of ‘ unstained, 
lofty, and solitary existence.’ My brother’s friend!” 

“Compromised politically, I suppose,” I remarked. 

“I don’t know. Yes. It must be so. Who knowsl 
Perhaps it was this very friendship with my brother 
which . . . But no! It is scarcely possible. Really I 
know nothing except what Peter Ivanovitch told me of 
him. He has brought a letter of introduction from 
Father Zosim — you know, the priest-democrat; you 
have heard of Father Zosim?” 

“ Oh yes. The famous Father Zosim was staying here 
in Geneva for some two months about a year ago,” 
I said. “When he left here he seems to have disap 
peared from the world.” 

“It appears that he is at work in Russia again. 
Somewhere in the center,” Miss Haldin said, with anima- 
tion. “ But please don’t mention that to any one — don’t 
let it slip from you, because if it got into the papers it 
would be dangerous for him.” 

“You are anxious, of course, to meet that friend of 
your brother?” I asked. 

Miss Haldin put the letter into her pocket. Her eyes 
looked beyond my shoulder at the door of her mother’s 
room. 

“Not here,” she murmured. “Not for the first time, 
at least.” 

After a moment of silence I said good-by, but Miss 
Haldin followed me into the anteroom, closing the door 
behind us carefully. 


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UNDER WESTERN EYES 

“I suppose you guess where I mean to go to to- 
morrow?” 

“You have made up your mind to call on Madame 
de S 

“ Yes. I am going to the Chateau Borel. I must.” 

“What do you expect to hear there ?” I asked, in a low 
voice. 

I wondered if she were not deluding herself with some 
impossible hope. It was not that, however. 

“Only think — such a friend. The only man men- 
tioned in his letters. He would have something to give 
me, if nothing more than a few poor words. It may be 
something said and thought in those last days. Would 
you want me to turn my back on what is left of my poor 
brother ? A friend.” 

“Certainly not,” I said. “I quite understand your 
pious curiosity.” 

“‘Unstained, lofty, and solitary existences,’” she 
murmured to herself. “There are! There are! Well, 
let me question one of them about the loved dead.” 

“How do you know, though, that you will meet him 
there? Is he staying in the Chateau as a guest — do 
you suppose?” 

“I can’t really tell,” she confessed. “He brought a 
written introduction from Father Zosim — who, it seems, 

is a friend of Madame de S , too. She can’t be such 

a worthless woman after all.” 

“There were all sorts of rumors afloat about Father 
Zosim himself,” I observed. 

She shrugged her shoulders. 

“Calumny is a weapon of our government, too. It’s 
well known. Oh yes! It is a fact that Father Zosim 
had the protection of the Governor- General of a certain 
province. We talked on the subject with my brother 
two years ago, I remember. But his work was good. 
And now he is proscribed. What better proof can one 
require ? But no matter what that priest was or is. All 

ie 135 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


that cannot affect my brother’s friend. If I don’t meet 
him there I shall ask these people for his address. And, 
of course, mother must see him, too, later on. There is 
no guessing what he may have to tell us. It would be a 
mercy if mamma could be soothed. You know what she 
imagines. Some explanation, perhaps, may be found, 
or — or even made up, perhaps. It would be no sin.” 

“ Certainly,” I said. ” It would be no sin. It may be 
a mistake, though.” 

“I want her only to recover some of her old spirit. 
While she is like this I cannot think of anything calmly.” 

“Do you mean to invent some sort of pious fraud for 
your mother’s sake?” I asked. 

“Why fraud? Such a friend is sure to know some- 
thing of my brother in those last days. He could tell 
us. . . . There is something in the facts which will not 
let me rest. I am certain he meant to join us abroad — 
that he had some plans — some great patriotic action in 
view; not only for himself, but for both of us. I trusted 
in that. I looked forward to the time, oh! with such 
hope and impatience! ... I could have helped. And 
now suddenly this appearance of recklessness — as if he 
had not cared. . . 

She remained silent for a time, then obstinately she 
concluded : 

“ I want to know . . .” 

Thinking it over, later on, while I walked slowly away 
from the Boulevard des Philosophes, I asked myself, 
critically, what precisely was it that she wanted to 
know ? What I knew of her history was enough to give 
me a clue. In the educational establishment for girls 
where Miss Haldin finished her studies she was looked 
upon rather unfavorably. She was suspected of holding 
independent views on matters settled by official teaching. 
Afterward, when the two ladies returned to their country 
place, both mother and daughter, by speaking their 
minds openly on local events, had earned for themselves 

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UNDER WESTERN EYES 

a reputation of liberalism. The three-horse trap of the 
district police captain began to be seen frequently in the 
village. “I must keep an eye on the peasants” — so he 
explained his visits up at the house. ” Two lonely ladies 
must be looked after a little.” He would inspect the 
walls as though he wanted to pierce them with his eyes, 
peer at the photographs, turn over the books in the 
drawing-room negligently, and, after the usual refresh- 
ments, would depart. But the old priest of the village 
came one evening in the greatest distress and agitation, 
to confess that he — the priest — had been ordered to 
watch, and ascertain in other ways, too (such as using his 
spiritual power with the servants), all that was going on 
in the house, and especially in respect of the visitors 
these ladies received, who they were, the length of their 
stay, whether any of them were strangers to that part of 
the country, and so on. The poor, simple old man was 
in an agony of humiliation and terror. ” I came to warn 
you. Be cautious in your conduct, for the love of God. 
I am burning with shame, but there is no getting out 
from under the net. I shall have to tell them what I see, 
because if I did not there is my deacon. He would make 
the worst of things to curry favor. And then my son-in- 
law, the husband of my Parasha, who is a writer in the 
Government Domain office — they would soon kick him 
out — and, maybe, send him away somewhere.” The old 
man lamented the necessities of the times — “when peo- 
ple do not agree, somehow,” and wiped his eyes. He 
did not wish to spend the evening of his days with a 
shaven head in the penitent’s cell of some monastery — 
“and subjected to all the severities of ecclesiastical dis- 
cipline; for they would show no mercy to an old man,” 
he groaned. He became almost hysterical, and the two 
ladies, full of commiseration, soothed him the best they 
could before they let him go back to his cottage. But, 
as a matter of fact, they had very few visitors. The 
neighbors — some of them old friends — began to keep 

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UNDER WESTERN EYES 


away; a few from timidity, others with marked disdain, 
being grand people that came only for the summer. 
Miss Haldin explained to me — aristocrats, reactionaries. 
It was a solitary existence for a young girl. Her rela- 
tions with her mother were of the tenderest and most 
open kind; but Mrs. Haldin had seen the experiences of 
her own generation, its sufferings, its deceptions, its 
apostasies, too. Her affection for her children was ex- 
pressed by the suppression of all signs of anxiety. She 
maintained a heroic reserve. To Nathalie Haldin, her 
brother, with his Petersburg existence, not enigmat- 
ical in the least (there could be no doubt of what he 
felt or thought) , but conducted a little mysteriously, was 
the only visible representative of a proscribed liberty. 
All the significance of freedom, its indefinite promises, 
lived in their long discussions, which breathed the loftiest 
hope of action and faith in success. Then, suddenly, the 
action, the hopes, came to an end with the details ferreted 
out by the English journalist. The concrete fact, the 
fact of his death, remained; but it remained obscure in 
its deeper causes. She felt herself abandoned without 
explanation. But she did not suspect him. What she 
wanted was to learn, almost at any cost, how she could 
remain faithful to his departed spirit. 


IV 


S EVERAL days elapsed before I met Nathalie Haldin 
again. I was crossing the place in front of the 
theater when I made out her shapely figure in the very 
act of turning between the gate pillars of the unattrac- 
tive public promenade of the Bastions. She walked 
away from me, but I knew we should meet as she re- 
turned down the main alley — unless, indeed, she were 
going home. In that case, I don't think I should have 
called on her yet. My desire to keep her away from 
these people was as strong as ever, but I had no illusions 
as to my power. I was but a Westerner, and it was 
clear that Miss Haldin would not, could not, listen to 
my wisdom; and as to my desire of listening to her voice, 
it were better, I thought, not to indulge overmuch in 
that pleasure. No, I would not have gone to the 
Boulevard des Philosophes; but when at about the 
middle of the principal alley I saw Miss Haldin coming 
toward me, I felt I was too curious, and too honest, 
perhaps, to run away. 

There was something of the spring harshness in the 
air. The blue sky was hard, but the young leaves clung 
like soft mist about the uninteresting range of trees ; and 
the clear sun put little points of gold into the gray of Miss 
Haldin’s frank eyes, turned to me with a friendly greeting. 
I inquired after the health of her mother. 

She had a slight movement of the shoulders and gave a 
little sigh. 

“But, you see, I did come out for a walk . . . for 
exercise as you English say.” 

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UNDER WESTERN EYES 

I smiled approvingly, and she added an unexpected 
remark : 

“ It is a glorious day” 

Her voice, slightly harsh, but fascinating with its 
masculine and bird - like quality, had the accent of 
spontaneous conviction. I was glad of it. It was as 
though she had become aware of her youth — for there 
was but little of spring-like glory in the rectangular railed 
space of grass and trees, framed visibly by the orderly 
roof-slopes of that town, comely without grace, and 
hospitable without sympathy. In the very air through 
which she moved there was but little warmth ; and the 
sky, the sky of a land without horizons, swept and 
washed clean by the April showers, extended a cold, 
cruel blue, without elevation, narrowed suddenly by the 
ugly, dark wall of the Jura, where, here and there, lin- 
gered yet a few miserable trails and patches of snow. 
All the glory of the season must have been within her- 
self — and I was glad this feeling had come into her life, 
if only for a little time. 

“ I am pleased to hear you say these words.” 

She gave me a quick look. Quick, not stealthy. If 
there was one thing of which she was absolutely incapa- 
ble it was stealthiness of appearance or intention. Her 
sincerity was expressed in the very rhythm of her walk 
as she moved by my side. It was I who was looking at 
her covertly — if I may say so. I knew where she had 
been, but I did not know what she had seen and heard in 
that nest of aristocratic conspiracies. I use the word 
aristocratic for want of a better term. The Chateau 
Borel, embowered in the trees and thickets of its neg- 
lected grounds, had its fame in our day, like the resi- 
dence of that other dangerous and exiled woman, Mme. 
de Stael, in the Napoleonic era. Only the Napoleonic 
despotism, the booted heir of the Revolution, which 
counted that intellectual woman for an enemy worthy 
to be watched, was something quite unlike the au- 
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UNDER WESTERN EYES 


tocracy in mystic vestments, engendered by the 
slavery of a Tartar conquest. And Mme. de S — — was 
very far from resembling the gifted author of Corinne. 
She made a great noise about being persecuted. I don’t 
know if she were regarded in certain circles as dangerous. 
As to being watched, I imagine that the Chateau Borel 
could be subjected only to a most distant observation. 
It was in its exclusiveness an ideal abode for hatching 
superior plots — whether serious or futile. But all this 
did not interest me. I wanted to know the effect its 
extraordinary inhabitants and its special atmosphere 
had produced on a girl like Miss Haldin, so true, so 
honest, but so dangerously inexperienced. Her un- 
consciously lofty ignorance of the baser instincts of man- 
kind left her disarmed before her own impulses. And 
there was also that friend of her brother, the significant 
new arrival from Russia. ... I wondered whether she 
had managed to meet him. 

We walked for some time, slowly and in silence. 

“You know” — I attacked her suddenly — “if you 
don’t intend telling me anything, you must say so dis- 
tinctly, and then, of course, it will be final. But I won’t 
play at delicacy. I ask you point-blank for all the 
details.” 

She smiled faintly at my threatening tone. 

“You are as curious as a child.” 

“No. I am only an anxious old man,” I replied, 
earnestly. 

She rested her glance on me as if to ascertain the 
degree of my anxiety or the number of my years. My 
physiognomy has never been expressive, I believe, and, as 
to my years, I am not ancient enough as yet to be 
strikingly decrepit. I have no long beard like the good 
hermit of a romantic ballad. My footsteps are not totter- 
ing, my aspect not that of a slow, venerable sage. Those 
picturesque advantages are not mine. I am old, alas, 
in a brisk, commonplace way. And it seemed to me 
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as though there were some pity for me in Miss Haldin’s 
prolonged glance. She stepped out a little quicker. 

“You ask for all the details. Let me see. I ought to 
remember them. It was novel enough for a — a village 
girl like me.” 

After a moment of silence she began by saying that the 
Chateau Borel was almost as neglected inside as outside. 
It was nothing to wonder at. A Hamburg banker, I 
believe, retired from business, had it built to cheer his 
remaining days by the view of that lake whose precise, 
orderly, and well-to-do beauty must have been attractive 
to the unromantic imagination of a business man. But 
he died soon. His wife departed, too (but only to Italy), 
and this house of moneyed ease, presumably unsalable, 
had stood empty for several years. One went up to it 
along a gravel drive, round a large, coarse grass-plot, 
with plenty of time to observe the degradation of its 
stuccoed front. Miss Hal din said that the impression 
was unpleasant. It grew more depressing as one came 
nearer. 

She observed green stains of moss on the steps of the 
terrace. The front door stood wide open. There was 
no one about. She found herself in a wide, lofty, and 
absolutely empty hall, with a good many doors. These 
doors were all shut. A broad, bare stone staircase faced 
her. The effect of the whole was of an untenanted 
house. She stood still, disconcerted by the solitude, 
but after a while she became aware of a voice speaking 
continuously somewhere. 

“You were probably being observed all the time,” I 
suggested. “There must have been eyes.” 

“I don’t see how that could be,” she retorted. “I 
haven’t seen even a bird in the grounds. I don’t re- 
member hearing a single twitter in the trees. The whole 
place appeared utterly deserted except for the voice.” 

She could not make out the language — Russian, French, 
or German. No one seemed to answer it. It was as 

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UNDER WESTERN EYES 


though the voice had been left behind by the departed in- 
habitants to talk to the bare walls. It went on volubly, 
with a pause now and then. It was lonely and sad. 
The time seemed very long to Miss Haldin. An in- 
visible repugnance prevented her from opening one of 
the doors in the hall. It was so hopeless. No one 
would come, the voice would never stop. She confessed 
to me that she had to resist an impulse to turn round and 
go away unseen, as she had come. 

“Really? You had that impulse?” I cried, full of 
regret. “What a pity you did not obey it.” 

She shook her head. 

“What a strange memory it would have been for one! 
Those deserted grounds, that empty hall, that imper- 
sonal, voluble voice, and — nobody, nothing, not a 
soul.” 

The memory would have been unique and harmless. 
But she was not a girl to run away from an intimidating 
impression of solitude and mystery. “No, I did not 
run away,” she said. “ I stayed where I was — and I did 
see a soul. Such a strange soul.” 

As she was gazing up the broad staircase, and had con- 
cluded that the voice came from somewhere above, a 
rustle of dress and light footsteps attracted her attention. 
She looked down and saw a woman crossing the hall, 
having issued, apparently, through one of the many 
doors. Her face was averted, so that at first she was 
not aware of Miss Haldin. 

On turning her head and seeing a stranger, she ap- 
peared very much startled. From her slender figure 
Miss Haldin had taken her for a young girl ; but, if her 
face was almost childishly round, it was also sallow and 
wrinkled, with dark rings under the eyes. A thick crop 
of dusty brown hair was parted boyishly on the side, 
with a lateral wave above the dry, furrowed forehead. 
After a moment of dumb blinking she suddenly squatted 
down on the floor. 


143 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


“What do you mean — squatted down?” I asked, as- 
tonished. “This is a very strange detail.” 

Miss Haldin explained the reason: This person when 
first seen was carrying a small bowl in her hand. She 
had squatted to set it down on the floor for the benefit 
of a large cat, which appeared then suddenly from behind 
her skirts and put its head into the bowl greedily. She 
got up and, approaching Miss Haldin, asked with nervous 
bluntness : 

“What do you want? Who are you?” 

Miss Haldin mentioned her name and also the name 
of Peter Ivanovitch. The girlish, elderly woman nodded 
and puckered her face into a momentary expression of 
sympathy. Her black silk blouse was old, and even 
frayed in places; the black serge skirt was short and 
shabby. She continued to blink at close quarters, and 
her eyelashes and eyebrows seemed worn out, too. Miss 
Haldin, speaking gently to her, as if to an unhappy and 
sensitive person, explained how it was that her visit 
could not be an altogether unexpected event to Mme. 
de S . 

“Ah! Peter Ivanovitch brought you an invitation. 
How was I to know ? A dame de compagnie is not con- 
sulted, as you may imagine.” 

The shabby woman laughed a little. Her teeth, 
splendidly white and admirably even, looked absurdly 
out of place, like a string of pearls on the neck of a 
ragged tramp. “ Peter Ivanovitch is the greatest genius 
of the century, perhaps, but he is the most inconsiderate 
man living. So if you have an appointment with him 
you must not be surprised to hear that he is not here.” 

Miss Haldin protested that she had no appointment 
with Peter Ivanovitch. She became interested at once 
in that bizarre person, who, after taking breath, 
started off again. 

“Why should he put himself out for you or any one 
else? Oh! these geniuses! If you only knew! Yes! 

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UNDER WESTERN EYES 


And their books — I mean, of course, the books that the 
world admires, the inspired books. But you have not 
been behind the scenes. Wait till you have to sit at a 
table for half a day with a pen in your hand. He can 
walk up and down his rooms for hours and hours. I 
used to get so stiff and numb as I sat that I was afraid I 
would lose my balance and fall off the chair all at once.” 

She kept her hands folded in front of her, and her eyes, 
fixed on Miss Haldin’s face, betrayed no animation what- 
ever. Their expression was that of quiet conviction. 
Miss Haldin, gathering that the lady who called herself 
a dame de compagnie was proud of having acted as 
secretary to Peter Ivanovitch, made an amiable remark: 

“You could not imagine a more trying experience,” 
protested the lady. “There is an Anglo-American 

journalist interviewing Madame de S now or I 

would take you up,” she continued, in a changed tone 
and glancing toward the staircase. “ I act as master of 
ceremonies.” 

It appeared that Mme. de S could not bear Swiss 

servants about her person; and, indeed, servants would 
not stay for very long in the Chateau Borel. There 
were always difficulties. Miss Haldin had already no- 
ticed that the hall was like a dusty barn of marble and 
stucco, with cobwebs in the comers and faint tracks of 
mud on the black-and-white tessellated floor. 

“ I look also after this animal,” continued the dame de 
compagnie, keeping her hands folded quietly in front of 
her; and she bent her worn gaze upon the cat. “ I don’t 
mind a bit. Animals have their rights; though, strictly 
speaking, I see no reason why they should not suffer 
as well as human beings. Do you? But of course they 
never suffer so much. That is impossible. Only in their 
case it is more pitiful because they cannot make a revolu- 
tion. I used to be a republican. I suppose you are a 
republican?” 

Miss Haldin confessed to me that she did not know 

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UNDER WESTERN EYES 

what to say. But she nodded slightly and asked, in her 
turn: 

“And are you no longer a republican?” 

“After taking down Peter Ivanovitch from dictation 
for two years it is difficult for me to be anything. First 
of all you have to sit perfectly motionless. The slightest 
movement you make puts to fiignt the ideas of Peter 
Ivanovitch. You hardly dare to breathe. And as to 
coughing — God forbid! Peter Ivanovitch changed the 
position of the table to the wall because at first I could 
not help raising my eyes to look out of the window while 
waiting for him to go on with his dictation. That was 
not allowed. He said I stared so stupidly. I was like- 
wise not permitted to look at him over my shoulder. 
Instantly Peter Ivanovitch stamped his foot and would 
roar, ‘ Look down on the paper !' It seems my expression, 
my face, put him off. Well, I know that I am not beau- 
tiful, and that my expression is not hopeful, either. He 
said that my air of unintelligent expectation irritated 
him. These are his own words.” 

Miss Haldin was shocked, but she confessed to me 
that she was not altogether surprised. 

“Is it possible that Peter Ivanovitch could treat any 
woman so rudely?” she asked. 

The dame de compagnie nodded several times with her 
air of discretion, then assured Miss Haldin that she did 
not mind in the least. The trying part of it was to have 
the secret of the composition laid bare before her; to see 
the great author of the revolutionary gospels grope for 
words as if he were in the dark as to what he meant to 
say. 

“I am quite willing to be the blind instrument of 
higher ends. To give one’s life for the cause is nothing. 
But to have one’s illusions destroyed — that is really al- 
most more than one can bear. I really don’t exag- 
gerate,” she insisted. “It seemed to freeze my very 
beliefs in me — the more so that when we worked in 
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UNDER WESTERN EYES 


winter Peter Ivanovitch, walking up and down the room, 
required no artificial heat to keep himself warm. Even 
in the south of France there are bitterly cold days, es- 
pecially when you have to sit still for six hours at a 
stretch. The walls of these villas are so flimsy. Peter 
Ivanovitch did not seem to be aware of anything. It is 
true that I kept down my shivers from fear of putting 
him out. I used to set my teeth till my jaw felt abso- 
lutely locked. In the moments when Peter Ivanovitch 
interrupted his dictation, and sometimes these intervals 
were very long — often twenty minutes, no less, while he 
walked to and fro behind my back muttering to himself — 
I felt I was dying by inches, I assure you. Perhaps if I 
had let my teeth rattle, Peter Ivanovitch might have no- 
ticed my distress, but I don’t think it would have had 
any practical effect. He’s very miserly in such matters.” 

The dame de compagnie glanced up the staircase. The 
big cat had finished the milk and was rubbing its whis- 
kered cheek sinuously against her skirt. She dived sud- 
denly to snatch it up from the floor. 

“Miserliness is rather a quality than otherwise, you 
know,” she continued, holding the cat in her folded arms. 
“With us it is misers who can spare money for worthy 
objects — not the so-called generous natures. But pray 
don’t think I am a Sybarite. My father was a clerk in 
the Ministry of Finances with no position at all. You 
may guess by this that our home was far from luxurious, 
though, of course, we did not actually suffer from cold. 
I ran away from my parents, you know, directly I began 
to think by myselT It is not very easy, such thinking. 
One has got to be put in the way of it, awakened to the 
truth. I am indebted for my salvation to an old apple- 
woman who had her stall under the gateway of the house 
we lived in. She had a kind, wrinkled face, and the most 
friendly voice imaginable. One day, casually, we began 
to talk about a child, a ragged little girl we had seen 
begging from men in the streets at dusk; and from one 

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UNDER WESTERN EYES 

thing to another my eyes began to open gradually to the 
horrors from which innocent people are made to suffer 
in this world, only in order that governments might 
exist. After I once understood the crime of the upper 
classes, I could not go on living with my parents. Not 
a single charitable word was to be heard in our home 
from year’s end to year’s end; there was nothing but 
the talk of vile office intrigues, and of promotion, and of 
salaries, and of courting the favor of the chiefs. The 
mere idea of marrying one day such another man as my 
father macie me shudder. I don’t mean that there 
was any one wanting to marry me. There was not 
the slightest prospect of anything of the kind. But 
was it not a sin enough to live on a government 
salary while half Russia was dying of hunger? The 
Ministry of Finances! What a grotesque horror it is! 
What do the starving, ignorant people want with a 
Ministry of Finances? I kissed my old folks on both 
cheeks and went away from them to live in cellars with 
the proletariate. I tried to make myself useful to the 
utterly hopeless. I suppose you understand what I 
mean ? I mean the people who have nowhere to go and 
nothing to look forward to in this life. Do you under- 
stand how frightful that is — nothing to look forward to ! 
Sometimes I think that it is only in Russia that there 
are such people and such a depth of misery can be 
reached. Well, I plunged into it and — do you know? — 
there isn’t much that one can do in there. No, indeed — 
at least as long as there are Ministries of Finances and 
such-like grotesque horrors to stand in the way. I sup- 
pose I would have gone mad there just trying to fight 
the vermin if it had not been for a man. It was my old 
friend and teacher, the poor, saintly apple- woman, who 
discovered him for me, quite accidentally. She came to 
fetch me late one evening in her quiet way. I followed 
her where she would lead; that part of my life was in her 
hands altogether, and without her my spirit would 
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UNDER WESTERN EYES 


have perished miserably. The man was a young work- 
man, a lithographer by trade, and he had got into 
trouble in connection with that affair of temperance 
tracts — you remember. There was a lot of people put in 
prison for that. The Ministry of Finances again ! What 
would become of it if the poor folk ceased making beasts 
of themselves with drink? Upon my word, I would 
think that finances and all the rest of it are an invention 
of the devil — if I believed in a personal devil. Only the 
belief in a supernatural source of evil is not necessary; 
men alone are quite capable of every wickedness. Fi- 
nances indeed!” 

Hatred and contempt hissed in her utterance of the 
word “finances,” but at the very moment she gently 
stroked the cat reposing in her arms. She even raised 
them slightly, and, inclining her head, rubbed her cheek 
against the fur of the animal, which received this caress 
with the complete detachment so characteristic of its 
kind. Then looking at Miss Haldin she excused herself 

once more for not taking her up-stairs to Mme. de S . 

The interview could not be interrupted. Presently the 
journalist would be seen coming down the stairs. The 
best thing was to remain in the hall; and, besides, all 
these rooms (she glanced all round at the many doors) 
— all these rooms on the ground floor were unfur- 
nished. 

“ Positively there is no chair down here to offer you,” 
she continued. “But if you prefer your own thoughts 
to my chatter, I will sit down on the bottom step here 
and keep silent.” 

Miss Haldin hastened to protest. On the contrary, 
she was very much interested in the story of the journey- 
man lithographer. He was a revolutionist, of course. 

“ A martyr, a simple man,” said the dame de compagnie, 
with a faint sigh and gazing through the open front door 
dreamily. She turned her misty brown eyes on Miss 
Haldin. 


149 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


“I lived with him for four months. It was like a 
nightmare.’* 

As Miss Haldin looked at her inquisitively she began 
to describe the emaciated face of the man, his fleshless 
limbs, his destitution. The room into which the apple- 
woman had led her was a tiny garret, a miserable den 
under the roof of a sordid house. The plaster fallen off 
the walls covered the floor, and when the door was opened 
a horrible tapestry of black cobwebs waved in the 
draught. He had been liberated a few days before — 
flung out of prison into the streets. And Miss Haldin 
seemed to see, for the first time, a name and a face upon 
the body of that suffering people whose hard fate had 
been the subject of so many conversations between her 
and her brother in the garden of their country-house. 

He had been arrested with scores and scores of other 
people in that affair of the lithographed temperance 
tracts. Unluckily, having got hold of a great many sus- 
pected persons, the police thought they could extract 
from some of them other information relating to the 
revolutionist propaganda. 

“They beat him so cruelly in the course of investiga- 
tion,’’ went on the dame de compagnie^ “that they in- 
jured him internally. When they had done with him he 
was doomed. He could do nothing for himself. I be- 
held him lying on a wooden bedstead without any bed- 
ding, with his head on a bundle of dirty rags, lent to him 
out of charity by an old ragpicker who happened to live 
in the basement of the house. There he was, uncovered, 
burning with fever, and there was not even a jug in the 
room for the water to quench his thirst with. There was 
nothing whatever — just that bedstead and the bare 
floor.” 

“Was there no one in all that great town among the 
liberals and revolutionaries to extend a helping hand to 
a brother?” asked Miss Haldin, indignantly. 

“ Yes. But you do not know the most terrible part of 

150 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


that man’s misery. Listen. It seems that they ill-used 
him so atrociously that, at last, his firmness gave way, 
and he did let out some information. Poor soul, the 
flesh is weak, you know. What it was he did not tell me. 
There was a crushed spirit in that mangled body. 
Nothing I found to say could make him whole. When 
they let him out he crept into that hole and bore his re- 
morse stoically. He would not go near any one he knew. 
I would have sought assistance for him, but, indeed, 
where could I have gone looking for it ? Where was I to 
look for any one who had anything to spare or any power 
to help ? The people living round us were all starving and 
drunken. They were the victims of the Ministry of 
Finances. Don’t ask me how we lived. I couldn’t tell 
you. It was like a miracle of wretchedness. I had 
nothing to sell, and, I assure you, my clothes were in such 
a state that it was impossible for me to go out in the day- 
time. I was indecent. I had to wait till it was dark 
before I ventured into the streets to beg for a crust of 
bread, or whatever I could get, to keep him and me alive. 
Often I got nothing, and then I would crawl back and lie 
on the floor by the side of his couch. Oh yes, I can sleep 
quite soundly on bare boards. That is nothing, and I 
am only mentioning it to you so that you should not 
think I am a Sybarite. It was infinitely less killing than 
the task of sitting for hours at a table in a cold study to 
take the books of Peter Ivanovitch from dictation. But 
you shall see, yourself, what that is like, so I needn’t say 
any more about it.” 

“ It is by no means certain that I will ever take Peter 
Ivanovitch from dictation,” Miss Haldin protested. 

“No!” said the other, incredulously. “Not certain? 
You mean to say that you have not made up your mind ?” 

When Miss Haldin assured her that there never had 
been any question of that between her and Peter Ivano- 
vitch, the woman with the cat compressed her lips 
tightly for a moment. 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


“Oh, you will find yourself settled at the table before 
you know that you have made up your mind. Don’t 
make a mistake; it is disenchanting to hear Peter 
Ivanovitch dictate, but at the same time there is a fas- 
cination about it. He is a man of genius. Your face is 
certain not to irritate him; you may, perhaps, even 
help his inspiration, make it easier for him to deliver 
his message. As I look at you I feel certain that you 
are the kind of woman who is not likely to check the 
flow of his inspiration.’’ 

Miss Haldin thought it useless to protest against all 
these assumptions. 

“ But this man — this workman — did he die under your 
care?’’ she said, after a short silence. 

The dame de compagnie, listening up the stairs where 
now two voices were alternating with some animation, 
made no answer for a time. When the loud sounds of 
the discussion had sunk into an almost inaudible mur- 
mur, she turned to Miss Haldin : 

“Yes, he died,’’ she vsaid, “but not, literally speaking, 
in my arms, as you migfrt suppose. As a matter of fact, 
I was asleep when he breathed his last. So even now 
I cannot say I have seen anybody die. A few days be- 
fore the end some young men had found us out in our 
extremity. They were revolutionists, as you might 
guess. He ought to have trusted in his political friends 
when he came out of prison. He had been liked and 
respected before, and nobody would have dreamed of 
reproaching him with his indiscretion before the police. 
Everybody knows how they go to work, and the strong- 
est man has his moments of weakness before pain. Why, 
even hunger alone is enough to give one queer ideas as 
to what may be done. A doctor came, our lot was al- 
leviated as far as physical comforts go, but otherwise 
he could not be consoled — poor man! I assure you, 
Miss Haldin, that he was very lovable, but I had not 
the strength to weep. I was nearly dead myself. But 
152 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 

there were kind hearts to take care of me. A decent 
dress was found to clothe my nakedness. I tell you, 
I was not decent — and after a time the revolutionists 
placed me with a Jewish family going abroad, as gov- 
emess. Of course, I could teach the children — I finished 
the sixth class of the Lyceum; but the real object was 
that I should carry some important papers across the 
frontier. I was intrusted with a packet which I car- 
ried next my heart. The gendarmes at the station 
did not suspect the governess of a Jewish family, busy 
looking after three children. I don’t suppose those 
Hebrews knew what I had on me, for I had been in- 
troduced to them in a very roundabout way by persons 
who did not belong to the revolutionary movement, and 
naturally I had been instructed to accept a very small 
salary. When we reached Germany I left that family 
and delivered my papers to a revolutionist in Stuttgart ; 
after this I was employed in various ways. But you 
do not want to hear all that. I have never felt that I 
was very useful, but I live in hopes of seeing all the 
ministries destroyed, finances and all. The greatest 
joy of my life has been to hear what your brother has 
done.” 

She directed her round eyes again to the sunshine 
outside, while the cat, reposing within her folded arms, 
had an air of lordly beatitude, and sphinx-like medita- 
tion. 

“Yes! I rejoiced,” she began again. “For me there 
is a heroic ring about the very name of Haldin. They 
must have been trembling with fear in their ministries 
— all those men with fiendish hearts. Here I stand, 
talking to you, and when I think of all the cruelties, 
oppressions, and injustices that are going on at this 
very moment, my head begins to swim. I have looked 
closely at what would seem inconceivable if one’s own 
eyes had not to be trusted. I have looked at things 
that made me hate myself for my helplessness. I hated 
153 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


my hands that had no power, my voice that could not 
be heard, my very mind that would not become un- 
hinged. Ah! I have seen things. And you?” 

Miss Haldin was moved. She shook her head slightly. 

“ No, I have seen nothing for myself as yet,” she 
murmured. “We have always lived in the country. 
It was my brother’s wish.” 

“It is a curious meeting, this, between you and me,” 
continued the other. “Do you believe in chance. Miss 
Haldin? How could I have expected to see you, his 
sister, with my own eyes ? Do you know that when the 
news came the revolutionaries here were as much sur- 
prised as pleased, every bit. No one seemed to know 
anything about your brother. Peter Ivanovitch him- 
self had not foreseen that such a blow was going to be 
struck. I suppose your brother was simply inspired. I 
myself think that such deeds should be done by in- 
spiration. It is a great privilege to have the inspiration 
and the opportunity. Did he resemble you at all? 
Don’t you rejoice. Miss Haldin?” 

“You must not expect too much from me,” said Miss 
Haldin, repressing an inclination to cry, which came 
over her suddenly. She succeeded, then added, calmly : 
“I am not a heroic person!” 

“ You think you couldn’t have done such a thing your- 
self, perhaps?” 

“I don’t know. I must not even ask myself till I 
have lived a little longer, seen more. ...” 

The other moved her head appreciatively. The purr- 
ing of the cat had a loud complacency in the empty hall. 
No sound of voices came from up-stairs. Miss Haldin 
broke the silence. 

“What is it precisely that you heard people say about 
my brother? You said that they were surprised. Yes, 
I suppose they were. Did it not seem strange to them 
that my brother should have failed to save himself after 
the most difficult part— that is, getting away from the 

154 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


spot — was over? Conspirators should understand these 
things well. There are reasons why I am very anxious 
to know.” 

The dame de compagnie had advanced to the open hall 
door. She glanced rapidly over her shoulder at Miss 
Haldin, who remained within the hall. 

” Succeed to escape ?” she repeated, absently. ” Didn’t 
he make the sacrifice of his life ? Wasn’t he just simply 
inspired? Wasn’t it an act of abnegation? Aren’t you 
certain?” 

“What I am certain of,” said Miss Haldin, “is that 
it was not an act of despair. Have you not heard some 
opinion expressed here upon his miserable capture?” 

The dame de compagnie mused for a while in the door- 
way. 

“Did I hear? Of course, everything is discussed 
here. Has not all the world been speaking about your 
brother ? For my part, the mere mention of his achieve- 
ment plunges me into an envious ecstasy. Why should 
a man certain of immortality think of his life at all?” 

She kept her back turned to Miss Haldin. Up-stairs 
from behind a great, dingy, white-and-gold door, visible 
behind the balustrade of the first-floor landing, a deep, 
voice began to drone formally, as if reading over notes 
or something of the sort. It paused frequently and 
then ceased altogether. 

“I don’t think I can stay any longer,” said Miss 
Haldin. “I will return another day.” 

She waited for the dame de compagnie to make room 
for her exit, but that last did not move. She appeared 
lost in the contemplation of sunshine and shadows, 
sharing between themselves the stillness of the deserted 
grounds. She concealed the view of the drive from Miss 
Haldin. Suddenly she said: 

“It is not necessary; here is Peter Ivanovitch him- 
self coming up. But he is not alone. He is seldom 
alone now.” 


155 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


Hearing that Peter Ivanovitch was approaching, Miss 
Haldin was not so pleased as she might have been ex- 
pected to be. Somehow she had lost the desire to see 

either the heroic captive or Mme. de S , and the 

reason of that shrinking which came upon her at the 
very last minute is accounted for by the feeling that 
those two people had not been treating the woman with 
the cat kindly. 

“Would you please let me pass?” said Miss Haldin, 
at last, touching lightly the shoulder of the dame de 
compagnie. 

But the other, pressing the cat to her breast, did not 
budge. 

“I know who it is with him,” she said, without even 
looking back. More unaccountably than ever. Miss 
Haldin felt a strong impulse to leave the house. 

“Madame de S may be engaged for some time 

yet, and what I have got to say to Peter Ivanovitch is 
just a simple question which I might put to him when 
I meet him in the grounds on my way down. I really 
think I will go. I have been some time here, and I am 
anxious to get back to my mother. Will you let me 
pass, please?” 

The dame de compagnie turned her head at last. 

“I never supposed that you really wanted to see 

Madame de S ,” she said, with unexpected insight. 

“ Not for a moment.” There was something confidential 
and mysterious in her tone. She passed through the 
door, with Miss Haldin following her, on to the terrace, 
and they descended, side by side, the moss-grown stone 
steps. There was no one to be seen on such stretches 
of the drive as were visible from the front of the house. 

“They are hidden by the trees over there,” explained 
Miss Haldin’s new acquaintance, “but you shall see 
them directly. I don’t know who that young man is 
to whom Peter Ivanovitch has taken such a fancy. He 
must be one of us, or he would not be admitted here 
156 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


when the others come. You know who I mean by the 
others. But I must say that he is not at all mystically 
inclined. I don’t know that I have made him out yet. 
Naturally I am never for very long in the drawing-room. 
There is always something for me to do, though the 
establishment here is not so extensive as the villa on 
the Riviera. But still, there are plenty of opportunities 
for me to make myself useful.” 

To the left, passing by the ivy-grown end of the 
stables, appeared Peter Ivanovitch and his companion. 
They walked very slowly, conversing with some anima- 
tion, and just then they even stopped for a moment, 
and Peter Ivanovitch was seen to gesticulate, while 
the young man listened motionless, with his arms 
hanging down and his head bowed a little. He was 
dressed in a dark-gray stiit and a black hat. The round 
eyes of the dame de compagnie remained fixed on the 
two figures, which had resumed their leisurely ap- 
proach. 

“An extremely polite young man,” she said. “You 
shall see what a bow he will make; and it won’t alto- 
gether be so exceptional, either. He bows in the same 
way when he meets me alone in the hall.” 

She moved on a few steps, with Miss Haldin by her 
side, and things happened just as she had foretold. The 
young man took off his hat, bowed and fell back, while 
Peter Ivanovitch advanced quicker, his black, thick 
arms extended heartily, and seized hold of both Miss 
Haldin’s hands, shook them, and peered at her through 
his dark glasses. 

“That’s right, that’s right!” he exclaimed twice, ap- 
provingly. “ And so you have been looked after by . . .” 
He frowned slightly at the dame de compagnie, who was 
still nursing the cat. “I conclude Eleanor — Madame 

de S is engaged. I know she expected somebody 

to-day. So the newspaper man did turn up, eh? She 
is engaged?” 


157 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 

For all answer the dame de compagnie turned away her 
head. 

“It is very unfortunate — very unfortunate, indeed. 
I v^ry much regret that you should have been . . .“ 
He lowered suddenly his voice. “But what is it — 
surely you are not departing, Natalia Viktorovna ? 
You got bored waiting, didn’t you?” 

“Not in the least,” Miss Haldin protested. “Only I 
have been here some time, and I am anxious to get back 
to my mother.” 

“The time seemed long, eh? I am afraid our worthy 
friend here” (Peter Ivanovitch suddenly jerked his 
head sideways toward his right shoulder and jerked it 
up again), “our worthy friend here had not the art of 
shortening the moments of w-aiting. No, distinctly she 
has not the art ; and in that respect good intentions alone 
count for nothing.” 

The dame de compagnie dropped her arms, and the cat 
found itself suddenly on the ground. It remained quite 
still after alighting, one hind leg stretched backward. 
Miss Haldin was extremely indignant on behalf of the 
lady companion. 

“Believe me, Peter Ivanovitch, that the moments I 
have passed in the hall of this house have been not a 
little interesting and very instructive, too. They are 
memorable. I do not regret the waiting, but I see that 
the object of my call here can be attained without 
taking up Madame de S ’s time.” 

At this point I interrupted Miss Haldin. The above 
relation is founded on her narrative, which I have not 
so much dramatized as might be supposed. She had 
rendered with extraordinary feeling and animation the 
very accent almost of the disciple of the old apple- 
woman, the irreconcilable hater of ministries, the vol- 
untary servant of the poor. Miss Haldin’s true and 
delicate humanity was extremely shocked by the un- 
congenial fate of her new acquaintance, that lady com- 

158 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


panion, secretary, whatever she was. For my own part, 
I was pleased to discover in it one more obstacle to in- 
timacy with Mme. de S . I had a positive abhor- 

rence for the painted, bedizened dead-faced, glassy-eyed 
Egeria of Peter Ivanovitch. I do not know what was 
her attitude to the unseen, but I know that in the affairs 
of this world she was avaricious, greedy, and unscrupu- 
lous. It was within my knowledge that she had been 
worsted in a sordid and desperate quarrel about money 
matters with the family of her late husband, the diplo- 
matist. Some very august personages, indeed (whom 
in her fury she had insisted upon scandalously involv- 
ing in her affairs), had incurred her animosity. I find it 
perfectly easy to believe that she had come to within 
an ace of being spirited away, for reasons of state, into 
some discreet mats on de sante — a madhouse of sorts, to 
be plain. It appears, however, that certain high-placed 
personages opposed it for reasons which . . . 

But it’s no use to go into details. 

Wonder may be expressed at a man in the position 
of a teacher of languages knowing all this with such 
definiteness. A novelist says this and that of his per- 
sonages, and, if only he knows how to say it earnestly 
enough, he may not be questioned upon the inventions 
of his brain in which his own belief is made sufficiently 
manifest by a telling phrase, a poetic image, the accent 
of emotion. Art is great! But I have no art, and not 

having invented Mme. de S , I feel bound to explain 

how I came to know so much about her. 

My informant was the Russian wife of a friend of 
mine, already mentioned, the professor of Lausanne 
University. It was from her that I learned the last 

fact of Mme. de S ’s history with which I intend to 

trouble my readers. She told me, speaking positively, 
as a person who trusts her sources, of the cause of Mme. 

de S ’s flight from Russia some years before. It 

was neither more nor less than this: that she became 

159 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


suspect to the police in connection with the assassina- 
tion of the Emperor Alexander. The ground of this 
suspicion was either some unguarded expressions that 
escaped her in public, or some talk overheard in her 
salon. Overheard we must believe by some guest, per- 
haps a friend, who hastened to play the informer, I sup- 
pose. At any rate, the overheard matter seemed to 
imply her foreknowledge of that event, and I think she 
was wise in not waiting for the investigation of such a 
charge. Some of my readers may remember a little 
book from her pen, published in Paris, a mystically bad- 
tempered, declamatory, and frightfully disconnected 
piece of writing, in which she all but admits the fore- 
knowledge, more than hints at its supernatural origin, 
and plainly suggests in venomous innuendoes that the 
guilt of the act was not with the terrorists, but with a 
palace intrigue. When I observed to my friend, the 

professor’s wife, that the life of Mme. de S , with its 

unofficial diplomacy, its intrigues, lawsuits, favors, dis- 
grace, expulsions, its atmosphere of scandal, occultism, 
and charlatanism, was more fit for the eighteenth cen- 
tury than for the conditions of our own time, she as- 
sented with a smile, but a moment after went on in 
a reflective tone: “Charlatanism? — yes, in a certain 
measure. Still, the times are changed. There are 
forces now which were non-existent in the eighteenth 
century. I should not be surprised if she were more 
dangerous than an Englishman would be willing to be- 
lieve. And, what’s more, she is looked upon as really 
dangerous by certain people — chez nous*' 

Chez nous, in this connection, meant Russia in general, 
and the Russian political police in particular. The ob- 
ject of my digression from the straight course of Miss 
Haldin’s relation (in my own words) of her visit to the 
Chateau Borel was to bring forward that statement of 
my friend, the professor’s wife. I wanted to bring it for- 
ward simply to make what I have to say presently of 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


Mr. Razumov’s presence in Geneva a little more credible 
— for this is a Russian story for Western ears, which, as I 
have observed already, are not attuned to certain tones 
of cynicism and cruelty of moral negation, and even of 
moral distress already silenced at our end of Europe, 
And this I state as my excuse for having left Miss Haldin 
standing, one of the little group of two women and two 
men who had come together below the terrace of the 
Chateau Borel. 

The knowledge which I have stated above was in my 
mind when, as I have said, I interrupted Miss Haldin. I 
interrupted her with the cry of profound satisfaction. 

“So, you never saw Madame de S , after all?” 

Miss Haldin shook her head. It was very satisfactory 

to me. She had not seen Mme. de S ! That was 

excellent, excellent! I welcomed the conviction that 

she would never know Mme. de S now. I could 

not explain the reason of the conviction but by the 
knowledge that Miss Haldin was standing face to face 
with her brother’s wonderful friend. I preferred him to 

Mme. de S as the companion and guide of that 

young girl, abandoned to her inexperience by the mis- 
erable end of her brother. /'But, at any rate, that life 
now ended had been sincere, and perhaps its thought 
might have been lofty, its moral sufferings profound, its 
last act a true sacrifice. It is not for us, the staid 
lovers calmed by the possession of a conquered liberty, 
to condemn without appeal the fierceness of thwarted 
desire. 

I am not ashamed of the warmth of my regard for 
Miss Haldin. It was, it must be admitted, an unselfish 
sentiment, being its own reward. The late Victor Haldin 
— in the light of that sentiment — appeared to me not as a 
sinister conspirator, but as a pure enthusiast. I did not 
wish, indeed, to judge him, but the very fact that he 
did not escape, that fact which brought so much trouble 
to both his mother and his sister, spoke to me in his 

i6i 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


favor. Meantime, in my fear of seeing the girl surrender 
to the influence of the Chateau Borel revolutionary 
feminism, I was more than willing to put my trust in that 
friend of the late Victor Haldin. He was nothing but a 
name, you will say. Exactly! A name! And, what’s 
more, the only name; the only name to be found in the 
correspondence between brother and sister. The young 
man had turned up; they had come face to face, and, 
fortunately, without the direct interference of Mme. de 

S . What will come of it? what will she tell me 

presently ? I was asking myself. 

It was only natural that my thought should turn to 
the young man, the bearer of the only name uttered in 
all the dream-talk of a future to be brought about by a 
revolution. And my thought took the shape of asking 
myself why this young man had not called upon these 
ladies. He had been in Geneva for some days before 
Miss Haldin heard of him first in my presence from 
Peter Ivanovitch. I regretted his presence at their 
meeting. I would rather have had it happen somewhere 
out of his spectacled sight. But I supposed that, hav- 
ing both these young people there, he introduced them 
to each other. 

I broke the silence by beginning a question on that 
point. 

“I suppose Peter Ivanovitch . . .” 

Miss Haldin gave vent to her indignation. Peter 
Ivanovitch, directly he had got his answer from her, had 
turned upon the dame de compagnie in a shameful manner. 

“Turned upon her?” I wondered. “What about? 
For what reason?” 

“It was unheard of; it was shameful,” Miss Haldin 
pursued, with angry eyes. “7/ lui a fait une scene — like 
this, before strangers. And for what ? You would never 
guess. For some eggs. . . . Oh!” 

I was astonished. “Eggs, did you say?” 

“For Madame de S . That lady observes a special 

162 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


diet, or something of the sort. It seems she had com- 
plained the day before to Peter Ivanovitch that the eggs 
were not rightly prepared. Peter Ivanovitch suddenly 
remembered this against the poor woman, and flew out 
at her. It was most astonishing. I stood as if rooted.” 

“Do you mean to say that the great feminist allowed 
himself to be abusive to a woman?” I asked. 

“Oh, not that! It was something you have no con- 
ception of. It was an odious performance. Imagine, 
he raised his hat to begin with. He made his voice soft 
and deprecatory. ‘ Ah 1 you are not kind to us — you will 
not deign to remember . . .’ This sort of phrases, that 
sort of tone. The poor creature was terribly upset. Her 
eyes ran full of tears. She did not know where to look. 
I shouldn’t wonder if she would have rather preferred 
abuse, or even a blow.” 

I did not remark that very possibly she was familiar 
with both on occasions when no one was by. Miss 
Haldin walked by my side, her head up in scornful and 
angry silence. 

“Great men have their surprising peculiarities,” I 
observed, inanely. “Exactly like men who are not 
great. But that sort of thing cannot be kept up for- 
ever. How did the great feminist wind up this very 
characteristic episode ? ’ ’ 

Miss Haldin, without turning her face my way, told 
me that the end was brought about by the appearance 
of the interviewer, who had been closeted with Mme. 
de S . 

He came up rapidly, unnoticed, lifted his hat slightly, 
and paused to say in French : “ The Baroness has asked 
me, in case I met a lady on my way out, to desire her to 
come in at once.” 

After delivering this message, he hurried down the 
drive. The dame de compagnie flew toward the house, 
and Peter Ivanovitch followed her hastily, looking 
uneasy. In a moment Miss Haldin found herself alone 
163 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


with the young man, who undoubtedly must have been 
the new arrival from Russia. She wondered whether 
her brother's friend had not already guessed who she 
was. 

I am in a position to say that, as a matter of fact, 
he had guessed. It is clear to me that Peter Ivanovitch 
for some reason or other had refrained from alluding to 
these ladies’ presence in Geneva. But Razumov had 
guessed. The trustful girl! Every word uttered by 
Haldin lived in Razumov’s memory. They were like 
haunting shapes; they could not be exorcised. The 
most vivid among them was the mention of the sister. 
The girl had existed for him ever since. But he did not 
recognize her at once. Coming up with Peter Ivano- 
vitch, he did not observe her; their eyes had met even. 
He had responded, as no one could help responding to 
the harmonious charm of her whole person, its strength, 
its grace, its tranquil frankness — and then he had turned 
his gaze away. He said to himself that all this was not 
for him; the beauty of women and the friendship of 
men were not for him. He accepted that feeling with 
a purposeful sternness, and tried to pass on. It was 
only her outstretched hand which brought about the 
recognition. It stands recorded in the pages of his 
self-confession that it nearly suffocated him physically 
with an emotional reaction of hate and dismay, as 
though her appearance had been a piece of accomplished 
treachery. 

He faced about. The considerable elevation of the 
terrace concealed them from any one lingering in the 
doorway of the house; and even from the up-stairs 
windows they could not have been seen. Through the 
thickets, run wild, and the trees of the gently sloping 
grounds he had cold, placid glimpses of the lake. A 
moment of perfect privacy had been vouchsafed to them 
at this juncture. I wondered to myself what use they 
had made of that fortunate circumstance. 

164 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 

“Did you have time for more than a few words?” I 
asked. 

That animation wdth which she had related to me the 
incidents of her visit to the Chateau Borel had left her 
completely. Strolling by my side she looked straight 
before her; but I noticed a little color on her cheek. 
She did not answer me. 

After some little time I observed that they could not 
have hoped to remain forgotten for very long, unless 

the other two had discovered Mme. de S swooning 

with fatigue, perhaps, or in a state of morbid exaltation 
after the long interview. Either would require their 
devoted ministrations. I could depict to myself Peter 
Ivanovitch rushing busily out of the house again, bare- 
headed, perhaps, and on across the terrace with his 
swinging gait, the black skirts of the frock-coat floating 
clear of his stout, light-gray legs. I confess to having 
looked upon these young people as the quarry of the 
“heroic fugitive.” I had the notion that they would 
not be allowed to escape capture. But of that I said 
nothing to Miss Haldin, only as she still remained un- 
communicative, I pressed her a little. 

“Well — but you can tell me at least your impression.” 

She turned her head to look at me, and turned away 
again. 

“Impression?” she repeated slowly, almost dreamily; 
then, in a quicker tone: 

“He seems to be a man who has suffered more from 
his thoughts than from evil fortune.” 

“From his thoughts, you say?” 

“And that is natural enough in a Russian,” she 
took me up. “In a young Russian; so many of them 
are unfit for action and yet unable to rest.” 

“And you think he is that sort of man?” 

“ No, I do not judge him. How could I, so suddenly? 
You asked for my impression — I explain my impression. 
I — I — don’t know the world nor yet the people in it; 

165 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


I have been too solitary — I am too young to trust my 
own opinions.” 

“Trust your instinct,” I advised her. “Most women 
trust to that and make no worse mistakes than men. 
In this case you have your brother’s letter to help you.” 

She drew a deep breath like a light sigh. 

“ Unstained, lofty, and solitary existences,” she quoted 
as if to herself. But I caught the wistful murmur 
distinctly. 

“High praise,” I whispered to her. 

“The highest possible.” 

“So high that, like the award of happiness, it is more 
fit to come only at the end of a life. But still no common 
or altogether unworthy personality could have suggested 
such a confident exaggeration of praise and . . .” 

“Ah!” She interrupted me ardently. “And if you 
had only known the heart from which that judgment has 
come!” 

She ceased on that note, and for a space I reflected on 
the character of the words which I perceived very well 
must tip the scale of the girl’s feelings in that young 
man’s favor. They had not the sound of a casual utter- 
ance. Vague they were to my Western mind and to my 
Western sentiment, but I could not forget that, standing 
by Miss Haldin’s side, I was like a traveler in a strange 
country. It had also become clear to me that Miss 
Haldin was unwilling to enter into the details of the only 
material part of her visit to the Chateau Borel. But I 
was not hurt. Somehow I didn’t feel it to be a want of 
confidence. It was some other difficulty — a difficulty I 
could not resent. And it was without the slightest re- 
sentment that I said : 

“ Very well. But on that high ground which I will not 
dispute, you, like any one else in such Circumstances — 
you must have made for yourself a representation of that 
exceptional friend, a mental image of him, and — please 
tell me — you were not disappointed?” 

i66 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 

‘‘What do you mean? His personal appearance?” 

‘‘I don’t mean precisely his good looks or otherwise.” 

We turned at the end of the alley and made a few 
steps without looking at each other. 

“His appearance is not ordinary,” said Miss Haldin, at 
last. 

“No, I should have thought not — from the little 
you’ve said of your first impression. After all, one has 
to fall back on that word. Impression! What I mean 
is that something indescribable which is likely to mark 
a ‘not ordinary’ person.” 

I perceived that she was not listening. There was no 
mistaking her expression; and once more I had the sense 
of being out of it — not because of my age, which, at any 
rate, could draw inferences — but altogether out of it on 
another plane whence I could only watch her from afar. 
And so, ceasing to speak, I watched her stepping out by 
my side. 

“No,” she exclaimed, suddenly, ‘‘I could not have 
been disappointed with a man of such strong feeling.” 

“Aha! Strong feeling,” I muttered, thinking to my- 
self, censoriously: ‘‘ Like this, at once, all in a moment!” 

“What did you say?” inquired Miss Haldin, inno- 
cently. 

“No, nothing. I beg your pardon. Strong feeling. 
I am not surprised.” 

“And you don’t know how abruptly I behaved to 
him,” she cried, remorsefully. 

I suppose I must have appeared surprised, for, looking 
at me with a still more heightened color, she said she was 
ashamed to admit that she had not been sufficiently col- 
lected; she had failed to control her words and actions 
as the situation demanded. She lost the fortitude 
worthy of both the men, the dead and the living; the 
fortitude which should have been the note of the meeting 
of Victor Haldin’s sister with Victor Haldin’s only known 
friend. He was looking at her keenly, but said nothing, 

12 167 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


and she was — she confessed — painfully affected by his 
want of comprehension. All she could say was, “You 
are Mr. Razumov.” At this a slight frown passed over 
his forehead. After a short, watchful pause he made a 
little bow of assent, and waited. 

At the thought that she had before her the man so 
highly regarded by her brother, the man who had known 
his value, spoken to him, understood him, had listened 
to his confidences, perhaps had encouraged him, her lips 
trembled, her eyes ran full of tears; she put out her 
hand, made a step toward him impulsively, saying, with 
an effort to restrain her emotion, “Can’t you guess who 
I am?” He did not take the proffered hand. He even 
recoiled a pace, and Miss Haldin imagined that he was 
unpleasantly affected. Miss Haldin excused him, di- 
recting her displeasure at herself. She had behaved un- 
worthily, like an emotional French girl. A manifestation 
of that kind could not be welcomed by a man of stern, 
self-contained character. 

He must have been stern indeed, or perhaps very timid 
with women, not to respond in a more human way to 
the advances of a girl like Nathalie Haldin, I thought to 
myself. Those lofty and solitary existences (I remem- 
bered the words suddenly) make a young man shy and 
an old man savage — often. 

“Well,” I encouraged Miss Haldin to proceed. 

She was still very dissatisfied with herself. 

“I went from bad to worse,” she said, with an air of 
discouragement very foreign to her. “ I did everything 
foolish except actually bursting into tears. I am thank- 
ful to say I did not do that. But I was unable to speak 
for quite a long time.” 

She had stood before him, speechless, swallowing her 
sobs, and when she managed at last to utter something 
it was only her brother’s name — “Victor — Victor Hal- 
din,” she gasped out, and again her voice failed her. 

“Of course,” she commented to me, “this distressed 

i68 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


him. He was quite overcome. I have told you my 
opinion that he is a man of deep feeling — it is impossible 
to doubt it. You should have seen his face. He posi- 
tively reeled. He leaned against the wall of the terrace. 
Their friendship must have been a very brotherhood of 
souls! I was grateful to him for that emotion, which 
made me feel less ashamed of my own lack of self-control. 
Of course, I had regained the power of speech at once, 
almost. All this lasted not more than a few seconds. 
‘I am his sister,’ I said. ‘Maybe you have heard of 
me. 

“And had he?” I interrupted. 

“I don’t know. How could it have been otherwise? 
And yet . . . But what does that matter? I stood there 
before him, near enough to be touched and surely not 
looking like an impostor. All I know is, that he put out 
both his hands then to me — I may say, flung them out 
at me with the greatest readiness and warmth — and that 
I seized and pressed them, feeling that I was finding 
again a little of what I thought was lost to me forever 
with the loss of my brother — some of that hope, in- 
spiration, and support which I used to get from my 
dear dead. . . .” 

I understood quite well what she meant. We strolled 
on slowly. I refrained from looking at her. And it was 
as if answering my own thoughts that I murmured: 

“No doubt it was a great friendship — as you say. 
And that young man ended by welcoming your name, 
so to speak, with both hands. After that, of course, you 
would understand each other. Yes, you would under- 
stand each other quickly.” 

It was a moment before I heard her voice. 

“Mr. Razumov seems to be a man of few words. A 
reserved man — even when he is strongly moved.” 

Unable to forget — or even to forgive — ^the bass-toned 
expansiveness of Peter Ivanovitch, the archpatron of 
revolutionary parties, I said that I took that for a favor- 
169 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


able trait of character. It was associated with sincerity 
— in my mind. 

“And, besides, we had not much time,** she added. 

“ No, you would not have, of course.*’ My suspicion 
and even dread of the feminist and his Egeria was so 
ineradicable that I could not help asking, with real 
anxiety, which I made smiling: 

“But you escaped all right?” 

She understood me, and smiled, too, at my uneasi- 
ness. 

“Oh yes! I escaped, if you like to call it that. I 
walked away quickly. There was no need to run. I 
am neither frightened nor yet fascinated, like that poor 
woman who received me so strangely.” 

“And Mr. — Mr. Razumov? . . .*’ 

“He remained there, of course. I suppose he went 
into the house after I left him. You remember that he 
came here strongly recommended to Peter Ivanovitch — 
possibly intrusted with important messages for him.” 

“Ah, yes! From that priest who ...” 

“Father Zosim — yes. Or from others, perhaps.” 

“You left him, then. But have you seen him since, 
may I ask?” 

For some time Miss Haldin made no answer to this 
very direct question; then: 

“I have been expecting to see him here to-day,” she 
said, quietly. 

“You have! Do you meet, then, in this garden? In 
that case I had better leave you at once.” 

“No, why leave me? And we don’t meet in this 
garden. I have not seen Mr. Razumov since that first 
time. Not once. But I have been expecting him ...” 

She paused. I wondered to myself why that young 
revolutionist should show so little alacrity. 

“Before we parted I told Mr. Razumov that I walked 
here for an hour every day at this time. I could not 
explain to him then why I did not ask him to come and 
170 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


see us at once. Mother must be prepared for such a 
visit. And then, you see, I do not know myself what 
Mr. Razumov has to tell us. He, too, must be told first 
how it is with poor mother. All these thoughts flashed 
through my mind at once. So I simply told him, hur- 
riedly, that there was a reason why I could not ask him 
to see us at home, but that I was in the habit of walking 
here. . . . This is a public place, but there are never many 
people about at this hour. I thought it would do very 
well. And it is so near our apartments. I don’t like 
to be very far away from mother. Our servant knows 
where I am in case I should be wanted suddenly.” 

“Yes. It is very convenient from that point of 
view,” I agreed. 

In fact, I thought the Bastions a very convenient 
place, since the girl did not think it prudent as yet to 
introduce that young man to her mother. It was here, 
then, I thought, looking round at that plot of ground 
of deplorable banality, that their acquaintance will be- 
gin and go on in the exchange of generous indignations 
and of extreme sentiments, too poignant, perhaps, for 
a non- Russian mind to conceive. I saw these two, 
escaped out of fourscore of millions of human beings, 
ground between the upper and nether millstone, walk- 
ing under these trees, their young heads close together. 
Yes, an excellent place to stroll and talk in. It even 
occurred to me, while we turned once more away from 
the wide iron gates, that, when tired, they would have 
plenty of accommodation to rest themselves. There 
was a quantity of tables and chairs displayed between 
the restaurant chdlet and the band-stand, a whole raft 
of painted deals spread out under the trees. In the 
very middle of it I observed a solitary Swiss couple, 
whose fate was made secure from the cradle to the 
grave by the perfected mechanism of democratic in- 
stitutions in a republic that could almost be held in the 
palm of one’s hand. The man, colorlessly uncouth, was 
171 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


drinking beer out of a glittering glass; the woman, 
rustic and placid, leaning back in the rough chair, gazed 
idly around. 

There is little logic to be expected on this earth, 
not only in the matter of thought, but also of senti- 
ment. I was surprised to discover myself displeased 
with that unknown young man — a week had gone by 
since they met. Was he callous, or shy, or very stupid ? 
I could not make it out. 

“Do you think,” I asked Miss Haldin, after we had 
gone some distance up the great alley, “that Mr. Razu- 
mov understood your intention?” 

“Understood what I meant?” she wondered. “He 
was greatly moved. That I know! In my own agita- 
tion I could see it. But I spoke distinctly. He heard 
me; he seemed, indeed, to hang on my words. . . .” 

Unconsciously she had hastened her pace. Her utter- 
ance, too, became quicker. 

I waited a little before I observed, thoughtfully: 

“And yet he allowed all these days to pass?” 

“ How can we tell what work he may have to do 
here? He is not an idler traveling for his pleasure. 
His time may not be his own — nor yet his thoughts, 
perhaps.” 

She slowed her pace suddenly, and in a lowered voice, 
added : 

“Or his very life” — then paused and stood still. 
“For all I know he may have had to leave Geneva the 
very day he saw me.” 

“Without telling you!” I exclaimed, incredulously. 

“I did not give him time. I left him quite abruptly. 
I behaved emotionally to the end. I am sorry for it. 
Even if I had given him the opportunity, he would have 
been justified in taking me for a person not to be trusted. 
An emotional, tearful girl is not a person to confide in. 
But even if he has left Geneva for a time, I am con- 
fident that we shall meet again.” 

172 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


“Ah! You are confident ... I dare say. But on 
what ground?” 

“Because I’ve told him that I was in great need of 
some one, a fellow-countryman, a fellow-believer, to 
whom I could give my confidence in a certain matter.” 

“I see. I don’t ask you what answer he made. I 
confess that this is good ground for your belief in Mr. 
Razumov’s appearance before long. But he has not 
turned up to-day?” 

“No!” she said, quietly. “Not to-day.” And we 
stood for a time in silence like people that have nothing 
more to say to each other and let their thoughts run 
widely asunder before their bodies go off their different 
ways. Miss Haldin glanced at the watch on her wrist 
and made a brusque movement. She had already over- 
stayed her time, it seemed. 

“ I don’t like to be away from mother,” she murmured, 
shaking her head. “It is not that she is very ill now. 
But, somehow, when I am not with her I am more un- 
easy than ever.” 

Mrs. Haldin had not made the slightest allusion to 
her son for the last week or more. She sat, as usual, 
in the arm-chair by the window looking out silently 
on that hopeless stretch of the Boulevard des Philo- 
sophes. When she spoke a few lifeless words, it was of 
indifferent, trivial things. 

“For any one who knows what the poor soul is think- 
ing of, that sort of talk is more painful than her silence. 
But that is bad, too ; I can hardly endure it, and I dare 
not break it.” 

Miss Haldin sighed, refastening a button of her glove 
which had come undone. I knew well enough what a 
hard time of it she must be having. The stress, its 
causes, its character, would have undermined the health 
of an Occidental girl; but Russian natures have a 
singular power of resistance against the unfair strains 
of life. Straight and supple, with a short jacket open 

173 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


on her black dress, which made her figure appear more 
slender and her fresh but colorless face more pale, she 
compelled my wonder and admiration. 

“I can’t stay a moment longer. You ought to come 
soon to see mother. You know she calls you 'Vami.' 
It is an excellent name, and she really means it. And 
now au revoir, I must run.” 

She glanced vaguely down the broad walk — the hand 
she put out to me eluded my grasp by an unexpected 
upward movement and rested upon my shoulder. Her 
red lips, the only bit of color she had, were slightly 
parted, not in a smile, however, but expressing a sort of 
startled pleasure. She gazed toward the gates and said 
quickly, with a gasp: 

“There! I knew it. Here he comes!” 

I understood that she must mean Mr. Razumov. A 
young man was walking up the alley without haste. 
His clothes were some dull shade of brown, and he car- 
ried a stick. When my eyes first fell on him his head 
was hanging on his breast as if in deep thought. While 
I was looking at him he raised it sharply, and at once 
stopped. I am certain he did, but that pause was 
nothing more perceptible than a faltering check in his 
gait, instantaneously overcome. Then he continued his 
approach, looking at us steadily. Miss Haldin signed 
to me to remain, and advanced a step or two to meet 
him- 

I turned my head away from that meeting, and did 
not look at them again till I heard Miss Haldin’s voice 
uttering his name in the way of introduction. Mr. 
Razumov was informed in a warm, low tone that, be- 
sides being a wonderful teacher, I was a great support 
“in our sorrow and distress.” 

Of course, I was described also as an Englishman. 
Miss Haldin spoke rapidly, faster than I have ever 
heard her speak, and that by contrast made the quiet- 
ness of her eyes more expressive. 

174 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


“I have given him my confidence,” she added, looking 
all the time at Mr. Razumov. That young man did 
indeed rest his gaze on Miss Haldin, but certainly did 
not look into her eyes that were so ready for him. 
Afterward he glanced backward and forward at us both, 
while the faint commencement of a forced smile, fol- 
lowed by the suspicion of a frown, vanished one after 
the other; I detected them, though neither could have 
been noticed by a person less intensely bent upon divin- 
ing him than myself. I don’t know what Nathalie Haldin 
had observed, but my attention seized the very shades of 
these movements. The attempted smile was given up, 
the incipient frown was checked and smoothed so that 
there should be no sign; but I imagined him exclaiming, 
inwardly : 

“Her confidence! To this elderly person — this for- 
eigner!” 

I imagined this because he looked foreign enough to 
me. I was, upon the whole, favorably impressed. He 
had an air of intelligence and even some distinction 
quite above the average of the students and other 
inhabitants of the Petite Russie. His features were 
more decided than in the generality of Russian faces; 
he had a line of the jaw, a clean-shaven, sallow cheek; 
his nose was a ridge and not a mere protuberance. His 
hat was well down over his eyes, his dark hair curled low 
on the nape of his neck; in the ill-fitting brown clothes 
there were sturdy limbs; a slight stoop brought out a 
satisfactory breadth of shoulders. Upon the whole, I 
was not disappointed. Studious — robust — shy. . . .” 

Before Miss Haldin had ceased speaking I felt the grip 
of his hand on mine, a muscular, firm grip, but unex- 
pectedly hot and dry. Not a word or even a mutter 
assisted this short and arid handshake. 

I intended to leave them to themselves, but Miss 
Haldin touched me lightly on the forearm with a sig- 
nificant contact, conveying a distinct wish. Let him 

175 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


smile who likes, but I was only too ready to stay near 
Nathalie Haldin, and I am not ashamed to say that it 
was no smiling matter to me. I stayed, not as a youth 
would have stayed, uplifted, as it were, poised in the air 
of exultation, but soberly, with my feet on the ground 
and my mind trying to penetrate her intention. She 
had turned to Mr. Razumov. 

“Well. This is the place. Yes, it is here that I 
meant you to come. I have been walking every day. 
. . . Don’t excuse yourself — I understand. I am grate- 
ful to you for coming to-day, but all the same I cannot 
stay now. It is impossible. I must hurry off home. 
Yes, even with you standing before me, I must run off. 
I have been too long away. ... You know how it is?” 

These last words were addressed to me. I noticed 
that Mr. Razumov passed the tip of his tongue over his 
lips, just as a parched, feverish man might do. He took 
her hand in its black glove, which closed on his and 
held it — detained it, quite visibly to me, against a 
drawing-back movement. 

“Thank you once more for — for understanding me,” 
she went on, warmly. He interrupted her with a cer- 
tain effect of roughness. I didn’t like him speaking to 
this frank creature so much from under the brim of his 
hat, as it were. And he produced a faint, rasping voice, 
quite like a man with a parched throat. 

“What is there to thank me for? Understand you? 
. . . How did I understand you? . . . You had better 
know that I understand nothing. I was aware that you 
wanted to see me in this garden. I could not come 
before. I was hindered. And even to-day, you see . . . 
late.” 

She still held his hand. 

“I can, at any rate, thank you for not dismissing me 
from your mind as a weak, emotional girl. No doubt I 
want sustaining; I am very ignorant. But I can be 
trusted. Indeed I can!” 


176 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


“You are ignorant,” he repeated, thoughtfully. He 
had raised his head and was looking straight into her 
face now, while she held his hand. They stood like this 
for a long moment. She released his hand. 

“Yes. You did come late. It was good of you to 
come on the chance of me having loitered beyond my 
time. I was talking with this good friend here. I was 
talking of you. Yes, Kirylo Sidorovitch, of you. He 
was with me when I first heard of your being here in 
Geneva. He can tell you what comfort it was to my 
bewildered spirit to hear that news. He knew I meant 
to seek you out. It was the only object of my accepting 
the invitation of Peter Ivanovitch . . .” 

“Peter Ivanovitch talked to you of me?” he inter- 
rupted, in that wavering, hoarse voice which suggested 
a horribly dry throat. 

“Very little. Just told me your name and that you 
had arrived here. Why should I have asked for more? 
What could he have told me that I did not know already 
from my brother’s letter? Three lines! And how 
much they meant to me! I will show them to you one 
day, Kirylo Sidorovitch. But now I must go. The 
first talk between us cannot be a matter of five minutes, 
so we had better not begin. ...” 

I had been standing a little aside, seeing them both in 
profile. At that moment it occurred to me that Mr. 
Razumov’s face was older than his age. 

“If mother” — the girl had turned suddenly to me — 
“were to wake up in my absence (so much longer than 
us.^al), she would, perhaps, question me. She seems to 
miss me more, you know, of late. She would want to 
know what delayed me — and, you see, it would be pain- 
ful for me to dissemble before her.” 

I understood the point very well. For the same reason 
she checked what seemed to be on Mr. Razumov’s part a 
movement to accompany her. 

“No! No! I go alone, but meet me here as soon 
177 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


as possible.’" Then to me in a lower, significant 
tone: 

“Mother may be sitting at the window at this moment, 
looking down the street. She must not know anything 
of Mr. Razumov’s presence here till — till something is 
arranged.’’ She paused before she added, a little louder, 
but still speaking to me: “Mr. Razumov does not quite 
understand my difficulty, but you know what it is.’’ 


V 


W ITH a quick inclination of the head for us both, 
and an earnest, friendly glance at the young man. 
Miss Haldin left us covering our heads and looking 
after her straight, supple figure receding rapidly. 
Her walk was not that hybrid and uncertain gliding 
affected by some women, but a frank, strong, healthy 
movement forward. Rapidly she increased the distance 
— disappeared with suddenness at last. I discovered 
only then that Mr. Razumov, after ramming his hat 
well over his brow, was looking me over from head to 
foot. I dare say I was a very unexpected fact for 
that young Russian to stumble upon. I caught in 
his physiognomy, in his whole bearing, an expression 
compounded of curiosity and scorn tempered by alarm, 
as though he had been holding his breath while I was 
not looking. But his eyes met mine with a gaze direct 
enough. I saw then for the first time that they were 
of a clear brown color, fringed with thick black eye- 
lashes. They were the youngest feature of his face. 
Not at all unpleasant eyes. He swayed slightly, lean- 
ing on his stick and generally hung in the wind. It 
flashed upon me that in leaving us thus together Miss 
Haldin had an intention — that something was in- 
trusted to me, since by a mere accident I had been found 
at hand. On this assumed ground I put all possible 
friendliness into my manner. 

I cast about for some right thing to say, and suddenly 
in Miss Haldin’s last words I perceived the clue to the 
nature of my mission. 


179 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 

“No,” I said, gravely, if with a smile. “You cannot 
be expected to understand.” 

His clean-shaven lip quivered ever so little before he 
said, as if wickedly amused: 

“But haven’t you heard just now? I was thanked 
by that young lady for understanding so well?” 

I looked at him rather hard. Was there a hidden and 
inexplicable sneer in this retort ? No. It was not that. 
It might have been resentment. Yes. But what had 
he to resent? He looked as though he had not slept 
very well of late. I could almost feel on me the weight 
of his unrefreshed, motionless stare, the stare of a man 
who lies unwinking in the dark, angrily passive in the 
toils of disastrous thoughts. Now, when I know how 
true it was, I can honestly affirm that this was the 
effect he produced on me. It was painful in a curiously 
indefinite way — for, of course, the definition comes to 
me now while I sit writing in the fullness of my knowl- 
edge. But this is what the effect was at that time of 
absolute ignorance. This new sort of uneasiness, which 
he seemed to be forcing upon me, I attempted to put 
down by assuming a conversational, easy familiarity. 

“That extremely charming and essentially admirable 
young girl (I am — ^as you see — old enough to be frank 
in my expressions) was referring to her own feelings. 
Surely you must have understood that much?” 

He made such a brusque movement that he even 
tottered a little. 

“Must understand this! Not expected to understand 
that! I may have other things to do. And the girl is 
charming and admirable. Well — and if she is! I sup- 
pose I can see that for myself.” 

This sally would have been insulting if his voice had 
not been practically extinct, dried up in his throat ; and 
the rustling effort of his speech too painful to give 
real offence. 

I remained silent, checked between the obvious fact 
i8o 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


and the subtle impression. It was open to me to leave 
him there and then; but the sense of having been in- 
trusted with a mission, the suggestion of Miss Hal din’s 
last glance, was strong upon me. After a moment of 
reflection I said: 

“Shall we walk together a little?” 

He shrugged his shoulders so violently that he tot- 
tered again. I saw it out of the corner of my eye as I 
moved on, with him at my elbow. He had fallen back 
a little and was practically out of my sight, unless I 
turned my head to look at him. I did not wish to in- 
dispose him still further by an appearance of marked 
curiosity. It might have been distasteful to such a 
young and secret refugee from under the pestilential 
shadow hiding the true, kindly face of his land. And 
the shadow, the attendant of his countrymen, stretching 
across the middle of Europe, was lying on him too, dark- 
ening his figure to my mental vision. “Without doubt,” 
I said to myself, listening to his heavy, unsteady foot- 
steps, “he seems a somber, even a desperate revolu- 
tionist; but he is young, he may be unselfish and hu- 
mane, capable of compassion, of . . .” 

I heard him clear, gratingly, his parched throat, and 
became all attention. 

“This is beyond everything,” were his first words. 
“ It is beyond everything! I find you here for no reason 
that I can understand, in possession of something I 
cannot be expected to understand! A confidant! A 
foreigner! Talking about an admirable Russian girl. 
Is the admirable girl a fool, I begin to wonder! What 
are you at? What is your object?” 

He was barely audible, as if his throat had no more 
resonance than a dry rag, a piece of tinder. It was so 
pitiful that I found it extremely easy to control my 
indignation. 

“When you have lived a little longer, Mr. Razumov, 
you will discover that no woman is an absolute fool. I 

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UNDER WESTERN EYES 


am not a feminist, like that illustrious author Peter 
Ivanovitch, who, to say the truth, is not a little suspect 
to me. . . ” 

He interrupted me in a surprising note of whispering 
astonishment. 

“Suspect to you! Peter Ivanovitch suspect to you! 
To you! . . .“ 

“Yes, in a certain aspect he is,” I said, dismissing 
my remark lightly. “As I was saying, Mr. Razumov, 
when you have lived long enough you will learn to dis- 
criminate between the noble trustfulness of a nature 
foreign to every meanness and the flattered credulity of 
some women ; though even these last, silly as they may 
be, unhappy as they are sure to be, are never absolute 
fools. It is my belief that no woman is ever com- 
pletely deceived. Those that are lost leap into the 
abyss with their eyes open, if all the truth were 
known.” 

“Upon my word,” he cried, at my elbow, “what is 
it to me whether women are fools or lunatics? I really 
don’t care what you think of them. I — I am not in- 
terested in them. I let them be. I am not a young 
man in a novel. How do you know that I want to learn 
anything about women ? . . . What is the meaning of all 
this?” 

“The object, you mean, of this conversation which, I 
admit, I have forced upon you in a measure.” 

“Forced! Object!” he repeated, still keeping half a 
pace or so behind me. “You wanted to talk about 
women, apparently. That’s a subject. But I don’t 
care for it. I have never ... In fact, I have had other 
subjects to think about.” 

“I am concerned here with one woman only. A 
young girl. The sister of your dead friend. Miss 
Haldin. Surely you can think a little of her. What I 
meant from the first was that there is a situation which 
you cannot be expected to understand.” 

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UNDER WESTERN EYES 


I listened to his unsteady footfalls by my side for the 
space of several strides. 

“I think that it may prepare the ground for your next 
interview with Miss Haldin if I tell you of it. I im- 
agine that she might have had something of the kind 
in her mind when she left us together. I believe my- 
self authorized to speak. The peculiar situation I have 
alluded to has arisen in the first grief and distress of 
Victor Haldin’s execution. There was something pe- 
culiar in the circumstances of his arrest. You, no doubt, 
know the whole truth. ...” 

I felt my arm seized above the elbow, and next in- 
stant found myself swung so as to face Mr. Razumov. 

“You spring up from the ground before me with this 
talk. Who the devil are you ? This is not to be borne ! 
Why ? What for ? What do you know of what is or is 
not peculiar? What have you to do with any con- 
founded circumstances, or with anything that happens 
in Russia, anyway?” 

He leaned on his stick with his other hand heavily; 
and when he let go my arm I was certain in my mind that 
he was hardly able to keep on his feet. 

“Let us sit down at one of these vacant tables,” I 
proposed, disregarding this display of unexpectedly 
profound emotion. It was not without its effect on 
me, I confess. I was sorry for him. 

“What tables? What are you talking about ? Oh — 
the empty tables? The tables there. Certainly. I 
will sit at one of the empty tables.” 

I led him away from the path to the very center of the 
raft of deals before the chdlet. The Swiss couple were 
gone by that time. We were alone on the raft, so to 
speak. Mr. Razumov dropped into a chair, let fall 
his stick, and, propped on his elbows, his head between 
his hands, stared at me persistently, openly, and con- 
tinuously, while I signaled the waiter and ordered some 
beer. I could not quarrel with this silent inspection 
13 1^3 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 

very well, because, truth to tell, I felt somewhat guilty 
of having been sprung on him with some abruptness — 
of having “sprung from the ground,” as he expressed it. 

While waiting to be served I mentioned that, bom 
from parents settled in St. Petersburg, I had acquired 
the language as a child. The town I did not remember, 
having left it for good as a boy of nine, but in later 
years I had renewed my acquaintance with the language. 
He listened, intent, without as much as moving his eyes 
the least little bit. He had to change his position when 
the beer came, and the instant draining of his glass 
revived him. He leaned back in his chair, and, folding 
his arms across his chest, continued to stare at me 
squarely. It occurred to me that his clean-shaven, 
almost swarthy face was really of the very mobile sort, 
and that the absolute stillness of it was the acquired 
habit of a revolutionist, of a conspirator everlastingly 
on his guard against self-betrayal in a world of secret 
spies. 

“But you are an Englishman — a teacher of English 
literature,” he murmured, in a voice that was no longer 
issuing from a parched throat. “I have heard of you. 
People told me you have lived here for years.” 

“Quite true. More than twenty years. And I have 
been assisting Miss Haldin with her English studies.” 

“You have been reading English poetry with her,” 
he said, immovable now, like another man altogether, 
a complete stranger to the man of the heavy and un- 
certain footfalls a little while ago — at my elbow. 

“Yes, English poetry,” I said. “But the trouble of 
which I speak was caused by an English newspaper.” 
He continued to stare at me. I don’t think he knew 
before that the story of the midnight arrest had been 
ferreted out by an English journalist and given to the 
world. When I explained this to him he muttered con- 
temptuously, “It may have been altogether a lie.” 

“I should think you are the best judge of that,” I 
184 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


retorted, a little disconcerted. “I must confess that 
to me it looks to be true in the main.” 

“How can you tell truth from lies?” he queried, in his 
new, immovable manner. 

“I don’t know how you do it in Russia,” I began, 
rather nettled by his attitude. He interrupted me. 

“In Russia, and in general everywhere — in a news- 
paper, for instance. The color of the ink and the 
shapes of the letters are the same.” 

“Well. There are other trifles one can go by. The 
character of the publication, the general verisimilitude 
of the news, the consideration of the motive, and so on. 
I don’t trust blindly the accuracy of special corre- 
spondents — ^but why should this one have gone to the 
trouble of concocting a circumstantial falsehood on a 
matter of no importance to the world?” 

“That’s what it is,” he grumbled. “What’s going on 
with us is of no importance — a mere sensational story to 
amuse the readers of the papers — the superior, con- 
temptuous Europe. It is hateful to think of. But let 
them wait a bit!” 

He broke off on this sort of threat addressed to the 
Western world. Disregarding the anger in his stare, I 
pointed out that, whether the journalist was well or ill 
informed, the concern of the friends of these ladies was 
with the effect the few lines of print in question had pro- 
duced — the effect alone. And surely he must be counted 
as one of the friends — if only for the sake of his late com- 
rade and intimate fellow-revolutionist. At that point, 
I thought he was going to speak vehemently; but he 
only astounded me by the convulsive start of his whole 
body. He restrained himself, folded his loosened arms 
tighter across his chest, and sat back with a smile in 
which there was a twitch of scorn and malice. 

“Yes, a comrade and an intimate. . . . Very well.” 

“ I ventured to speak to you on that assumption. And 
I cannot be mistaken. I was present when Peter Ivano- 

185 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


vitch announced your arrival here to Miss Haldin, and 
I saw her relief and thankfulness when your name was 
mentioned. Afterward she showed me her brother’s 
letter and read out the few words in which he alludes to 
you. What else but a friend could you have been?” 

“Obviously. That’s perfectly well known. A friend. 
Quite correct. ... Go on. You were talking of some 
effect.” 

I said to myself: “ He puts on the callousness of a 
stern revolutionist, the insensibility to common emo- 
tions of a man devoted to a destructive idea. He is 
young, and his sincerity assumes a pose before a stranger, 
a foreigner, an old man. Youth must assert itself. ...” 
As concisely as possible I exposed to him the state of 
mind poor Mrs. Haldin had been thrown into by the 
news of her son’s untimely end. 

He listened — I felt it — with profound attention. His 
level stare, deflected gradually downward, left my face 
and rested at last on the ground at his feet. 

“You can enter into the sister’s feelings. As you 
said, I have only read a little English poetry with her, 
and I won’t make myself ridiculous in your eyes by try- 
ing to speak of her. But you have seen her. She is 
one of those rare human beings that do not want ex- 
plaining. At least I think so. They had only that son, 
that brother, for a link with the wider world, with the 
future. The very groundwork of active existence for 
Nathalie Haldin is gone with him. Can you wonder, 
then, that she turns with eagerness to the only man 
her brother mentions in his letters? Your name is a 
sort of legacy.” 

“What could he have written of me?” he cried, in a 
low, exasperated tone. 

“Only a few words. It is not for me to repeat them 
to you, Mr. Razuniov; but you may believe my asser- 
tion that these words are forcible enough to make both 
his mother and his sister believe implicitly in the worth 

i86 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


of your judgment and in the truth of anything you 
may have to say to them. It’s impossible for you now 
to pass them by like strangers.” 

I paused, and for a moment sat listening to the foot- 
steps of the few people passing up and down the broad, 
central walk. While I was speaking his head had sunk 
upon his breast above his folded arms. He raised it 
sharply. 

“Must I go, then, and lie to that old woman?” 

It was not anger; it was something else, something 
more poignant and not so simple. I was aware of it 
sympathetically, while I was profoundly concerned at 
the nature of that exclamation. 

‘‘Dear me! Won’t the truth dp, then? I hoped you 
could have told them something consoling. I am think- 
ing of the poor mother now. Your Russia is a cruel 
country.” 

He moved a little in his chair. 

‘‘Yes,” I repeated. ‘‘I thought you would have had 
something authentic to tell.” 

The twitching of his lips before he spoke was curious. 

‘‘What if it is not worth telling?” 

‘‘Not worth — from what point of view? I don’t 
understand.” 

‘‘From every point of view.” 

I spoke with some asperity: “I should think that 
anything which could explain the circumstances of that 
midnight arrest ...” 

‘‘ Reported by a journalist for the amusement of the 
civilized Europe!” he broke in, scori^ully. 

‘‘Yes, reported. . . . But, aren’t they true? I can’t 
make out your attitude in this. Either the man is a 
hero to you or . . .” 

He approached his face, with fiercely distended nos- 
trils, close to mine so suddenly that I had the greatest 
difficulty in not starting back. 

“You ask me! I suppose it amuses you, all this. 

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UNDER WESTERN EYES 


Look here! I am a worker. I studied. Yes, I studied 
very hard. There is intelligence here.” He tapped his 
forehead with his finger-tips. “Don’t you think a Rus- 
sian may have sane ambitions? Yes — I had even pros- 
pects. Certainly! I had. And now you see me here, 
abroad, everything gone, lost, sacrificed. You see me 
here — and you ask! You see me, don’t you — sitting 
before you?” 

He threw himself back violently. I kept outwardly 
calm. 

“Yes, I see you here; and, I assume, you are here on 
account of the Haldin affair?” 

His manner changed. 

“You call it the Haldin affair — do you?” he observed, 
indifferently. 

“I have no right to ask you anything,” I said. “I 
wouldn’t presume. But in that case the mother and the 
sister of him who must be a hero in your eyes cannot be 
indifferent to you. The girl is a frank and generous 
creature, having the noblest — well — illusions. You will 
tell her nothing, or you will tell her everything. But 
speaking now of the object with which I’ve approached 
you : first, we have to deal with the morbid state of the 
mother. Perhaps something could be invented under 
your authority as a cure for a distracted and suffering soul 
filled with maternal affection.” 

His air of weary indifference was accentuated, I could 
not help thinking, wilfully. 

“ Oh yes. Something might,” he mumbled carelessly. 

He put his hand over his mouth as if to conceal a 
yawn. When he uncovered his lips they were smiling 
faintly. 

“Pardon me. This has been a long conversation, and 
I have not had much sleep the last two nights.” 

This unexpected, somewhat insolent sort of apology 
had the merit of being perfectly true. He had had no 
nightly rest, to speak of, since that day when, in the 
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UNDER WESTERN EYES 


grounds of the Chateau Borel, the sister of Victor Haldin 
had appeared before him. The perplexities and the 
complex terrors — I may say — of this sleeplessness are 
recorded in the document I was to see later — the docu- 
ment which is the main source of this narrative. At 
the moment he looked to me convincingly tired, gone 
slack all over, like a man who has passed through some 
sort of crisis. 

“I have had a lot of urgent writing to do,” he added. 

I rose from my chair at once, and he followed my 
example without haste, a little heavily. 

“I must apologize for detaining you so long,” I said. 

‘‘Why apologize? One can’t very well go to bed be- 
fore night. And you did not detain me. I could have 
left you at any time.” 

I had not stayed with him to be offended. 

‘‘I am glad you have been sufficiently interested,” I 
said, calmly. “No merit of mine, though — the com- 
monest sort of regard for the mother of your friend was 
enough. . . . As to Miss Haldin herself, she, at one time, 
was disposed to think that her brother had been betrayed 
to the police in some way.” 

To my great surprise, Mr. Razumov sat down again 
suddenly. I stared at him, and I must say that he re- 
turned my stare without winking for quite a considerable 
time. 

“In some way,” he mumbled, as if he had not under- 
stood or could not believe his ears. 

“Some unforeseen event, a sheer accident, might have 
done that,” I went on. “Or, as she characteristically 
put it to me, the folly or weakness of some unhappy fel- 
low-revolutionist. 

“Folly or weakness,” he repeated, bitterly. 

“She is a very generous creature,” I observed, after 
a time. 

The man admired by Victor Haldin fixed his eyes on 
the ground. I turned away and moved off, apparently 
189 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


unnoticed by him. I nourished no resentment of the 
moody brusqueness with which he had treated me. The 
sentiment I was carrying away from that conversation 
was that of hopelessness. Before I had got fairly clear 
of the raft of chairs and tables he had rejoined me. 

“H'm, yes!” I heard him at my elbow again. “But 
what do you think?” 

I did not look round, even. 

“I think that you people are under a curse.” 

He made no sound. It was only on the pavement out- 
side the gate that I heard him again. 

“I should like to walk with you a little.” 

After all, I preferred this enigmatical young man to 
his celebrated compatriot, the great Peter Ivanovitch. 
But I saw no reason for being particularly gracious. 

“ I am going now to the railway station by the shortest 
way from here to meet a friend from England,” I said, 
for all answer to his unexpected proposal. I hoped 
that something informing could come of it. As we stood 
on the curbstone waiting for a tram-car to pass he re- 
marked, gloomily: 

“ I like what you said just now.” 

“Do you?” 

We stepped off the pavement together. 

“The great problem,” he went on, “is to understand 
thoroughly the nature of the curse.” 

“That’s not very difficult, I think.” 

“I think so, too,” he agreed with me, and his readi 
ness, strangely enough, did not make him less enig- 
matical. 

“A curse is an evil spell,” I tried him again. “And 
the important, the great problem, is to find the means 
to break it.” 

“Yes. To find the means.” 

That was also an assent, but he seemed to be think- 
ing of something else. We had crossed diagonally the 
open space before the theater, and began to descend a 
190 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


broad, sparely frequented street in the direction of one 
of the smaller bridges. He kept on by my side without 
speaking for a long time. 

“You are not thinking of leaving Geneva soon?” I 
asked. 

He was silent for so long that I began to think I had 
been indiscreet and should get no answer at all. Yet, 
on looking at him I almost believed that my question 
^ad caused him something in the nature of positive 
anguish. I detected it mainly in the clasping of his 
hands, in which he put a great force stealthily. Once, 
however, he had overcome that sort of agonizing hesita^ 
tion sufficiently to tell me that he had no such in- 
tention, he became rather communicative — at least 
relatively to the former offhand curtness of his speeches. 
The tone, too, was more amiable. He informed me 
that he intended to study and also to write. He 
went even so far as to tell me he had been to Stuttgart. 
Stuttgart, I was aware, was one of the revolutionary 
centers. The directing committee of one of the Rus- 
sian parties (I can’t tell now which) was located in that 
town. It was there that he got into touch with the 
active work of the revolutionists outside Russia. 

“I have never been abroad before,” he explained, in 
a rather inanimate voice now. Then, after a slight 
hesitation, altogether different from the agonizing irreso- 
lution my first simple question “whether he meant to 
stay in Geneva” had aroused, he made me an unex- 
pected confidence: 

“The fact is, I have received a sort of mission from 
them.” 

“Which will keep you here in Geneva?” 

“Yes. Here. In this odious . . .” 

I was satisfied with my faculty for putting two and 
two together when I drew the inference that the mission 
had something to do with the person of the great Peter 
Ivanovitch. But I kept that surmise to myself natu- 
191 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 

rally, and Mr. Razumov said nothing more for some con- 
siderable time. It was only when we were nearly on 
the bridge we had been making for that he opened his 
lips again, abruptly: 

“Could I see that precious article anywhere?” 

I had to think for a moment before I saw what he 
was referring to. 

“It has been reproduced in parts by the press here. 
There are files to be seen in various places. My copy 
of the English newspaper I left with Miss Haldin, I 
remember, on the day after it reached me. I was suf- 
ficiently worried by seeing it lying on a table by the 
side of the poor mother’s chair for weeks. Then it dis- 
appeared. It was a relief, I assure you.” 

He had stopped short. 

“I trust,” I continued, “that you will find time to 
see these ladies fairly often — that you will make time.” 

He stared at me so queerly that I hardly know how 
to define his aspect. I could not understand it in this 
connection at all. What ailed him? I asked myself. 
What strange thought had come into his head? What 
vision of all the horrors that can be seen in his hopeless 
country had come suddenly to haunt his brain? If it 
were anything connected with the fate of Victor Haldin, 
then I hoped earnestly he would keep it to himself for- 
ever. I was, to speak plainly, so shocked that I tried 
to conceal my impression by — Heaven forgive me — a 
smile and the assumption of a light manner. 

“Surely,” I exclaimed, “that needn’t cost you a 
great effort.” 

He turned away from me and leaned over the parapet 
of the bridge. For a moment I waited, looking at his 
back. And yet, I assure you, I was not anxious just 
then to look at his face again. He did not move at all. 
He did not mean to move. I walked on slowly, on my 
way toward the station. At the end of the bridge I 
glanced over my shoulder. No, he had not moved. He 
192 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


hung well over the parapet, as if captivated by the 
smooth rush of the blue water under the arch. The 
current there is swift, extremely swift; it makes some 
people dizzy; I myself can never look at it for any 
length of time without experiencing a dread of being 
suddenly snatched away by its destructive force. Some 
brains cannot resist the suggestion of irresistible power 
and of headlong motion. 

It apparently had a charm for Mr. Razumov. I left 
him hanging far over the parapet of the bridge. The 
way he had behaved to me could not be put down to 
mere boorishness. There was something else under his 
scorn and impatience. Perhaps, I thought, with sud- 
den approach to hidden truth, it was the same thing 
which had kept him over a week, nearly ten days, in- 
deed, from coming near Miss Haldin. But what it was 
I could not tell. Though he leaned dangerously far 
over the parapet, he had not the aspect of a man un 
duly fascinated by the suggestion of the running water. 



PART THIRD 



I 


T he water under the bridge ran violent and deep. 

Its slightly undulating rush seemed capable of 
scouring out a channel for itself through solid gran- 
ite while you looked. But, had it flowed through 
Razumov’s breast, it could not have washed away the 
accumulated bitterness the wrecking of his life had 
deposited there. 

“What is the meaning of all this?” he thought, star- 
ing downward at the headlong river flowing so smooth 
and clean that only the passage of a faint air-bubble 
or a thin vanishing streak of foam like a white hair 
disclosed its vertiginous rapidity, its terrible force. 
“Why has that meddlesome old Englishman blundered 
against me? And what is this silly tale of a crazy old 
woman?” ^ 

He was trying to think brutally on purpose, but he 
avoided any mental reference to the young girl. “A 
crazy old woman,” he repeated to himself. “It is a 
fatality ! Or ought I to despise all this as an absurdity ? 
But, no ! I am wrong ! I can’t afford to despise anything. 
An absurdity may be the starting-point of the most 
dangerous complications. How is one to guard against 
it? It puts to rout one’s intelligence. The more in- 
telligent one is the less one suspects an absurdity.” 

A wave of wrath choked his thoughts for a moment. 
It even made his body leaning over the parapet quiver; 
then he resumed his silent thinking, like a secret dia- 
logue with himself. And even in that privacy, his thought 
had some reservations of which he was vaguely conscious. 
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UNDER WESTERN EYES 


“After all, this is not absurd, perhaps. It is insig- 
nificant. It is absolutely insignificant — absolutely. 
The craze of an old woman — the fussy officiousness of a 
blundering elderly Englishman. What devil put him 
in the way ? Haven't I treated him cavalierly enough ? 
Haven’t I just? That’s the way to treat these med- 
dlesome persons. Is it possible that he still stands 
behind my back, waiting?’’ 

Razumov felt a faint chill run down his spine. It was 
not fear. He was certain that it was not fear — not 
fear for himself; but it was, all the same, a sort 
of apprehension as if for another, for some one he 
knew without being able to put a name on the per- 
sonality. But the recollection that the officious Eng- 
lishman had a train to meet, tranquilized him for a time. 
It was too stupid to suppose that he should be wasting 
his time in waiting. It was unnecessary to look round 
and make sure.” 

“But what did he mean by his extraordinary rigma- 
role about the newspaper and that crazy old woman?” 
he thought, suddenly. “ It was a damnable presump- 
tion, anyhow, something that only an Englishman could 
be capable of. All this was a sort of sport for him — 
the sport of revolution — a game to look at from the 
height of his superiority. And what on earth did he 
mean by his exclamation, ‘Won’t the truth do?’ ” 

Razumov pressed his folded arms to the stone cop- 
ing over which he was leaning, with force. “Won’t the 
truth do?” The truth for the crazy old mother of 
the . . .” 

The young man shuddered again. “Yes. The truth 
would do! Apparently it would do. Exactly. And 
receive thanks,” he thought, formulating the unspoken 
words cynically. “Fall on my neck in gratitude, no 
doubt,” he jeered, mentally. But this mood abandoned 
him at once. He felt sad, as if his heart had become 
empty suddenly. “Well, I must be cautious,” he con- 
198 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


eluded, coming to himself as though his brain had been 
awakened from a trance. “There is nothing, no one 
too insignificant, too absurd, to be disregarded,” he 
thought, wearily. “I must be cautious.” 

Razumov pushed himself with his hand away from 
the balustrade, and, retracing his steps along the bridge, 
walked straight to his lodgings, where for a lew days 
he led a solitary and retired existence. He neglected 
Peter Ivanovitch, to whom he was accredited by the 
Stuttgart group; he never went near the refugee revo- 
lutionists, to whom he had been introduced on his 
arrival. He kept out of that world altogether. And 
he felt that such conduct, causing surprise and arousing 
suspicion, contained an element of danger for himself. 

This is not to say that during these few days he never 
went out. I met him several times in the streets, but 
he gave me no recognition. Once, going home after an 
evening call on the ladies Haldin, I saw him crossing 
the dark roadway of the Boulevard des Philosophes. 
He had a broad-brimmed, soft hat, and the collar of his 
coat turned up. I vratched him make straight for the 
house, but, instead of going in, he stopped opposite the 
still lighted windows, and after a time went away down 
a side street. 

I knew that he had not been to see Mrs. Haldin yet. 
Miss Haldin told me he was reluctant; moreover, the 
mental condition of Mrs. Haldin had changed. She 
seemed to think now that her son was living, and she 
perhaps awaited his arrival. Her immobility in the great 
arm-chair in front of the window had an air of expec- 
tancy, even when the blind was down and the lamps 
lighted. 

For my part, I was convinced she had received her 
death-stroke; Miss Haldin, to whom, of course, I said 
nothing of my forebodings, thought that no good would 
come from introducing Mr. Razumov just then, an opin- 
ion which I shared fully. I knew that she met the young 
14 199 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


man on the Bastions. Once or twice I saw them stroll- 
ing slowly up the main alley. Perhaps they met every 
day. I don’t know. I avoided passing that way dur- 
ing the hour when Miss Haldin took her exercise there. 
One day, however, in a fit of absent-mindedness, I 
entered the gates and came upon her walking alone. I 
stopped to exchange a few’ words. Mr. Razumov failed 
to turn up, and we began to talk about him — naturally. 

“ Did he tell you anything definite about your brother’s 
activities — his end?” I ventured to ask. 

“No,” admitted Miss Haldin, with some hesitation. 
“Nothing definite.” 

I understood well enough that all their conversa- 
tions must have been referred mentally to that dead 
man who had brought them together. That was un- 
avoidable. But it was in the living man that she was 
interested. That was unavoidable, too, I suppose. And 
as I pushed my inquiries I discovered that he had dis- 
closed himself to her as a by no means conventional 
revolutionist, contemptuous of watchwords, of theories, 
of men, too. I was rather pleased at that — but I was a 
little puzzled. 

“His mind goes forward, far ahead of the struggle,” 
Miss Haldin explained. “Of course he is an actual 
worker, too,” she added. 

“And do you understand him?” I inquired, point- 
blank. 

vShe hesitated again. “Not altogether,” she murmured. 

I perceived that he had fascinated her by an assump- 
tion of mysterious reserve. 

“Do you know what I think?” she went on, breaking 
through her reserved, almost reluctant, attitude; “I 
think that he is observing, studying me, to discover 
whether I am worthy of his trust. . . 

“And that pleases you?” 

She kept mysteriously silent for a moment. Then 
with energy, but in a confidential tone: 

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UNDER WESTERN EYES 


“I am convinced,” she declared, “that this extraor- 
dinary man is meditating some vast plan, some great un- 
dertaking; he is possessed by it — he suffers from it — 
and from being alone in the world.” 

“ And so he’s looking for helpers?” I commented, turn- 
ing away my head. 

Again there was a silence. 

“Why not?” she said at last. 

The dead brother, the dying mother, the foreign friend 
had fallen into a distant background. But, at the same 
time, Peter Ivanovitch was absolutely nowhere now. 
And this thought consoled me. Yet I saw the gigantic 
shadow of Russian life deepening around her like the 
darkness of an advancing night. It would devour her 
presently. I inquired after Mrs. Haldin — that other 
victim of the deadly shade. 

A remorseful uneasiness appeared in her frank eyes. 
Mother seemed no worse, but if I only knew what strange 
fancies she had sometimes! Then Miss Haldin, glancing 
at her watch, declared that she could not stay a moment 
longer, and, with a hasty handshake, ran off lightly. 

Decidedly Mr. Razumov was not to turn up that day. 
Incomprehensible youth! . . . 

But less than an hour afterward, while crossing the 
Place Mollard, I caught sight of him boarding a South 
Shore tram-car. 

“He’s going to the Chateau Borel,” I thought. 

After depositing Razumov at the gates of the Chateau 
Borel, some half a mile or so from the town, the car con- 
tinued its journey, between two straight lines of shady 
trees. Across the roadway, in the sunshine, a short, 
wooden pier jutted into the shallow, pale water which, 
farther out, had an intense blue tint, contrasting un- 
pleasantly with the green, orderly slopes on the opposite 
shore. The whole view, with the harbor jetties of 
white stone underlining lividly the dark front of the 
201 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


town to the left, and the expanding space of water to the 
right, with jutting promontories of no particular charac- 
ter, had the uninspiring, glittering quality of a very 
fresh oleograph. Razumov turned his back on it with 
contempt. He thought it odious — oppressively odious 
in its unsuggestive finish, the very perfection of medioc- 
rity attained at last after centuries of toil and culture. 
And, turning his back on it, he faced the entrance to the 
grounds of the Chateau Borel. 

The bars of the central way and the .wrought-iron 
arch between the dark, weather-stained stone piers were 
very rusty ; and, though fresh tracks of wheels ran under 
it, the gate looked as if it had not been opened for a very 
long time. But close against the lodge, built of the same 
gray stone as the piers (its windows were all boarded up) 
there was a small side entrance. The bars of that were 
rusty, too; it stood ajar and looked as though it had not 
been closed for a long time. In fact, Razumov, trying 
to push it open a little wider, discovered it was im- 
movable. 

“Democratic virtue. There are no thieves here ap- 
parently,” he muttered to himself, with displeasure. 
Before advancing into the grounds he looked back 
sourly at an idle working-man lounging on the bench 
in the clean, broad avenue. The fellow had thrown his 
feet up ; one of his arms hung over the low back of the 
public seat; he was taking a day off in lordly repose, as 
if everything in sight belonged to him. 

“Elector! Eligible! Enlightened!” Razumov mut- 
tered to himself. “A brute all the same.” 

Razumov entered the grounds and walked fast up the 
wide sweep of the drive, trying to think of nothing — to 
rest his head, to rest his emotions, too. But arriving at 
the foot of the terrace before the house, he faltered, af- 
fected physically by some invisible interference. The 
mysteriousness of his quickened heart-beats startled 
him. He stopped short and looked at the brick wall of 
202 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


the terrace, faced with shallow arches, meagerly clothed 
by a few unthriving creepers, with an ill-kept, narrow 
flower-bed along its foot. 

“It is here!” he thought, with a sort of awe. “It is 
here — on this very spot.” 

He was tempted to flight at the mere recollection of 
his first meeting with Nathalie Haldin. He confessed it 
to himself; but he did not move, and that not because 
he wished to resist an unworthy weakness, but because 
he knew that he had no place to fly to. Moreover, he 
could not leave Geneva. He recognized, even without 
thinking, that it was impossible. It would have been 
a fatal admission, an act of moral suicide. It would 
have been also physically dangerous. Slowly he as- 
cended the stairs of the terrace flanked by two stained 
greenish stone urns of funereal aspect. 

Across the broad platform, where a few blades of 
grass sprouted on the discolored gravel, the door of 
the house, with its ground-floor windows shuttered, 
faced him, wide open. He believed that his approach 
had been noted, because, framed in the doorway, without 
his tall hat, Peter Ivanovitch seemed to be waiting for 
his approach. 

The ceremonious black frock-coat and the bared head 
of Europe’s greatest feminist accentuated the dubious- 
ness of his status in the house rented by Mme. de 

S , his Egeria. His aspect combined the formality 

of the caller with the freedom of the proprietor. Florid 
and bearded, and masked by the dark-blue glasses, he 
met the visitor, and at once took him familiarly under 
the arm. 

Razumov suppressed every sign of repugnance by an 
effort which the constant necessity of prudence had 
rendered almost mechanical. And this necessity had set- 
tled his expression in a cast of austere, almost fanatical 
aloofness. The “heroic fugitive,” impressed afresh by 
the severe detachment of this new arrival from the 
203 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


revolutionary Russia, took a conciliatory, even a con- 
fidential tone. Mme. de S was resting after a bad 

night. She often had bad nights. He had left his hat 
up-stairs on the landing, and had come down to suggest 
to his young friend a stroll and a good open-hearted talk 
in one of the shady alleys behind the house. After 
voicing this proposal, the great man glanced at the un- 
moved face by his side, and could not restrain himself 
from exclaiming: 

“On my word, young man, you are an extraordinary 
person.” 

“I fancy you are mistaken, Peter Ivanovitch. If I 
were really an extraordinary person, I would not be 
here, walking with you in a garden in Switzerland, Can- 
ton of Geneva, Commune of — what’s the name of the 
commune this place belongs to? . . . Never mind — the 
heart of democracy, anyhow. A fit heart for it; no 
bigger than a parched pea and about as much value. I 
am no more extraordinary than the rest of us Russians, 
wandering abroad.” 

But Peter Ivanovitch protested emphatically: 

“No! No! You are not ordinary. I have some 
experience of Russians who are — well — living abroad. 
You appear to me and to others, too, a marked per- 
sonality.” 

“What does he mean by this?” Razumov asked him- 
self, turning his eyes fully on his companion. The face 
of Peter Ivanovitch expressed a meditative seriousness. 

“You don’t suppose, Kirylo Sidorovitch, that I have 
not heard of you from various points where you made 
yourself known on your way here. I have had letters.” 

“Oh, we are great in talking about one another,” in- 
terjected Razumov, who was listening with great atten- 
tion. “Gossip, tales, suspicions, and all that sort of 
thing we know how to deal in to perfection. Calumny 
even ...” 

In indulging in this sally, Razumov managed very 
204 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


well to conceal the feeling of anxiety that came over 
him. At the same time he was saying to himself that 
there could be no earthly reason for anxiety. He was 
relieved by the evident sincerity of the protesting voice. 

“Heavens!” cried Peter Ivanovitch. “What are you 
talking about! What reason can you have to . . .?” 

The great exile flung up his arms as if words had 
failed him in sober truth. Razumov was satisfied. Yet 
he was pioved to continue in the same vein. 

“I am talking of the poisonous plants which flourish 
in the world of conspirators, like evil mushrooms in a 
dark cellar.” 

“You are casting aspersions,” remonstrated Peter 
Ivanovitch, “which as far as you are concerned ...” 

“No!” Razumov interrupted, without heat. “In- 
deed, I don’t want to cast aspersions, but it’s just as 
well to have no illusions.” 

Peter Ivanovitch gave him an inscrutable glance of 
his dark spectacles, accompanied by a faint smile. 

“The man who says that he has no illusions has at 
least that one,” he said, in a very friendly tone. “But 
I see how it is, Kirylo Sidorovitch. You aim at stoicism.” 

“Stoicism! That’s a pose of the Greeks and the 
Romans. Let’s leave it to them. We are Russians, 
that is — children; that is — sincere; that is — cynical, 
if you like. But that’s not a pose.” 

A long silence ensued. They strolled slowly under 
the lime-trees. Peter Ivanovitch had put his hands 
behind his back. Razumov felt the ungraveled ground 
of the deeply shadowed walk damp, and as if slippery 
under his feet. He asked himself, with uneasiness, if he 
were saying the right things. The direction of the con- 
versation ought to have been more under his control, 
he reflected. The great man appeared to be reflecting 
on his side, too. He cleared his throat slightly, and 
Razumov felt at once a painful reawakening of scorn and 
fear. 


205 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


“I am astonished,” began Peter Ivanovitch, gently. 
“Supposing you are right in your indictment, how can 
you raise any question of calumny or gossip in your case ? 
It is unreasonable. The fact is, Kirylo Sidorovitch, 
there is not enough known of you to give hold to gossip 
or even calumny. Just now you are a man associated 
with a great deed which had been hoped for, and tried 
for, too, without success. People have perished for at- 
tempting that which you and Haldin have done at 
last. You come to us out of Russia with that prestige. 
But you cannot deny that you have not been commu- 
nicative, Kirylo Sidorovitch. People you have met 
imparted their impressions to me; one wrote this, an- 
other that, but I form my own opinions. I waited to 
see you first. You are a man out of the common. 
That's positively so. You are close, very close. This 
taciturnity, this severe brow, this something inflexible 
and secret in you, inspires hopes and a little wonder 
as to what you may mean. There is something of a 
Brutus . . .” 

“Pray spare me those classical allusions,” burst out 
Razumov, nervously. “What comes Junius Brutus to 
do here? It is ridiculous! Do you mean to say,” he 
added, sarcastically, but lowering his voice, “that the 
Russian revolutionists are all patricians, and that I am an 
aristocrat?” 

Peter Ivanovitch, who had been helping himself with 
a few gestures, clasped his hands again behind his back 
and made a few steps, pondering. 

“Not all patricians,” he muttered at last. “But 
you, at any rate, are one of 

Razumov smiled bitterly. 

“ To be sure, my name is not Gugenheimer,” he said, in 
a sneering tone. “I am not a democratic Jew. How 
can I help it? Not everybody has such luck. I have 
no name, I have no . . .” 

The European celebrity showed a great concern. He 
206 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


stepped back a pace and his arms flew in front of his 
person, extended, deprecatory, almost entreating. His 
deep bass voice was full of pain. 

“But, my dear young friend!'* he cried. “My dear 
Kirylo Sidorovitch . . .” 

Razumov shook his head. 

“The very patronymic you are so civil as to use when 
addressing me I have no legal right to — ^but what of that .? 
I don’t wish to claim it. I have no father. So much 
the better. But I will tell you what: my mother’s 
grandfather was a peasant — a serf. See how much I am 
one of you. I don’t want any one to claim me. But 
Russia can't disown me. She cannot!’’ 

Razumov struck his breast with his fist. 

“1 am itr 

Peter Ivanovitch walked on slowly, his head lowered. 
Razumov followed, vexed with himself. That was not 
the right sort of talk. All sincerity was an imprudence. 
Yet one could not renounce truth altogether, he thought, 
with despair. Peter Ivanovitch, meditating behind his 
dark glasses, became to him suddenly so odious that 
if he had had a knife he fancied he could have stabbed 
him not only without compunction, but with a hor- 
rible, triumphant satisfaction. His imagination dwelt 
on that atrocity in spite of himself. It was as if 
he were becoming light-headed. “It is not what is 
expected of me,” he repeated to himself. “It is not 
what is ... I could get away by breaking the fastening 
on the little gate I see there in the back wall. It is a 
flimsy lock. Nobody in the house seems to know he is 
here with me. Oh yes. The hat! These women would 
discover presently the hat he has left on the landing. 
They would come upon him lying dead in this damp, 
gloomy shade — but I would be gone, and no one could 
ever . . . Lord! Am I going mad?” he asked himself, 
in a fright. 

The great man was heard — musing in an undertone. 

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UNDER WESTERN EYES 


“H’m, yes! That — no doubt — in a certain sense — 
He raised his voice. “There is a deal of pride about 
you — “ 

The intonation of Peter Ivanovitch took on a homely, 
familiar ring, acknowledging, in a way, Razumov’s claim 
to peasant descent. 

“A great deal of pride. Brother Kirylo. And I don’t 
say that you have no justification for it. I have ad- 
mitted you had. I have ventured to allude to the facts 
of your birth simply because I attach no mean impor- 
tance to it. You are one of us — un des notres. I re- 
flect on that with satisfaction.” 

“ I attach some importance to it, also,” said Razumov, 
quietly. “I won’t even deny that it may have some 
importance for you, too,” he continued, after a slight 
pause and with a touch of grimness of which he was him- 
self aware, with some annoyance. He hoped it had 
escaped the perception of Peter Ivanovitch. “But sup- 
pose we talk no more about it?” 

“Well, we shall not — not after this one time, Kirylo 
Sidorovitch,” persisted the noble archpriest of revolu- 
tion. “This shall be the last occasion. You cannot be- 
lieve for a moment that I had the slightest idea of 
wounding your feelings. You are clearly a superior 
nature — ^that’s how I read you. Quite above the com- 
mon — h’m — susceptibilities. But the fact is, Kirylo Si- 
dorovitch, I don’t know your susceptibilities. Nobody 
out of Russia knows much of you — as yet!” 

“You have been watching me,” suggested Razumov. 

“Yes.” 

The great man had spoken in a tone of perfect frank- 
ness, but, as they turned their faces to each other, 
Razumov felt baffled by the dark spectacles. Under 
their cover Peter Ivanovitch hinted that he had felt for 
some time the need of meeting a man of energy and 
character, in view of a certain project. He said nothing 
more precise, however; and after some critical remarks 
208 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


upon the personalities of the various members of the 
Committee of Revolutionary Action in Stuttgart, he let 
the conversation lapse for quite a long while. They 
paced the alley from end to end. Razumov, silent too, 
raised his eyes from time to time to cast a glance at the 
back of the house. It offered no sign of being inhabited. 
With its grimy weather-stained walls and all the win- 
dows shuttered from top to bottom, it looked damp and 
gloomy and deserted. It might very well have been 
haunted in traditional style by some doleful, groaning, 
futile ghost of a middle-class order. The shades evoked, 

as worldly rumor had it, by Mme. de S , to meet 

statesmen, diplomatists, deputies of various European 
parliaments, must have been of another sort. Raz- 
umov had never seen Mme. de S but in the car- 

riage. 

Peter Ivanovitch came out of his abstraction. 

“Two things I may say to you at once. I believe, 
first, that neither a leader nor any decisive action can 
come out of the dregs of a people. Now, if you ask me 
what are the dregs of a people — h’m — it would take too 
long to tell. You would be surprised at the variety of 
ingredients that for me go to the making up of these 
dregs — of that which ought, must remain, at the bottom. 
Moreover, such a statement might be subject to dis- 
cussion. But I can tell you what is not the dregs. On 
that it is impossible for us to disagree. The peasantry 
of a people is not the dregs ; neither is its highest class — 
well — the nobility. Reflect on that, Kirylo Sidorovitch! 
I believe you are well fitted for reflection. Everything 
in a people that is not genuine, not its own by origin 
or development, is — well — dirt! Intelligence in the 
wrong place is that. Foreign-bred doctrines are that. 
Dirt! Dregs! The second thing I would offer to your 
meditation is this: that for us at this moment there 
yawns a chasm between the past and the future. It 
can never be bridged by foreign liberalism. All at- 
209 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


tempts at it are either folly or cheating. Bridged it 
can never be! It has to be filled up.” 

A sort of sinister jocularity had crept into the tones 
of the burly feminist. He seized Razumov’s arm above 
the elbow and gave it a slight shake. 

“Do you understand, enigmatical young man? It 
has got to be just filled up.” 

Razumov kept an unmoved countenance. 

‘‘Don’t you think that I have already gone beyond 
meditation on that subject?” he said, freeing his arm 
by a quiet movement which increased the distance a lit- 
tle between himself and Peter Ivanovitch, as they went 
on strolling abreast. And he added that surely whole 
cartloads of words and theories could never fill that 
chasm. No meditation was necessary. A sacrifice of 
many lives could alone ... He fell silent without fin- 
ishing the phrase. 

Peter Ivanovitch inclined his big, hairy head slowly, 
and proposed that they should go and see if Mme. de 
S was now visible. 

‘‘We shall get some tea,” he said, turning out of the 
shaded gloomy walk with a brisker step. 

The lady companion had been on the lookout. Her 
dark skirt whisked into the doorway as the two men 
came in sight round the corner. She ran off somewhere 
altogether, and had disappeared when they entered the 
hall. In the crude light falling from the dusty glass 
skylight upon the black-and-white tessellated floor, cov- 
ered with muddy tracks, their footsteps echoed faintly. 
The great feminist led the way up the stairs. On the 
balustrade of the first-floor landing, a shiny tall hat 
reposed, rim upward, opposite the double door of the 
drawing-room, haunted, it was said, by evoked ghosts, 
and frequented, it was to be supposed, by fugitive revo- 
lutionists. The cracked white paint of the panels, the 
tarnished gilt of the moldings, permitted one to imagine 
nothing but dust and emptiness within. Before turning 
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UNDER WESTERN EYES 


the massive brass handle, Peter Ivanovitch gave his 
young companion a sharp, partly critical, partly pre- 
paratory glance. 

“ No one is perfect,’^ he murmured, discreetly. Thus 
the possessor of a rare jewel might, before opening the 
casket, warn the profane that no gem, perhaps, is 
flawless. 

He remained with his hand on the door-handle so 
long that Razumov assented by a moody “No.” 

“Perfection itself would not produce that effect,” 
pursued Peter Ivanovitch — “in a world not meant for 
it. But you will find there a mind — no! — the quin- 
tessence of feminine intuition — which will understand 
any perplexity you may be suffering from — by the irre- 
sistible, enlightening force of sympathy. Nothing can 
remain obscure before that, that — inspired, yes, inspired 
penetration, this true light of feminity.” 

The gaze of the dark spectacles in its glassy stead- 
fastness gave his face an air of absolute conviction. 
Razumov felt a momentary shrinking before that 
mysterious door. 

“ Penetration I Light 1” he stammered out. “ Do you 
mean some sort of thought-reading?” 

Peter Ivanovitch seemed shocked. 

“I mean something utterly different,” he retorted, 
with a faint, pitying smile. 

Razumov began to feel angry, very much against his 
wish. 

“This is very mysterious,” he muttered through his 
teeth. 

“You don’t object to being understood, to being 
guided?” queried the great feminist. 

Razumov exploded in a fierce whisper: 

“ In what sense ? Be pleased to understand that I am 
a serious person. Who do you take me for?” 

They looked at each other very closely. Razumov’s 
temper was cooled by the impenetrable earnestness of the 

2II 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


blue glasses meeting his stare. Peter Ivanovitch turned 
the handle at last. 

“You shall know directly,” he said, pushing the door 
open. 

A low-pitched but harsh voice was heard within the 
room. 

Enfin. Vous voila.** 

In the doorway, his black-coated bulk blocking the 
view, Peter Ivanovitch boomed in a hearty tone, with 
Something boastful in it. 

“Yes! Here I am!” 

He glanced over his shoulder at Razumov, who waited 
for him to move on. 

“And I am bringing you a proved conspirator — a real 
one this time. Un vrai celui-la.” 

This pause in the doorway gave the “proved con- 
spirator” time to make sure that his face did not betray 
his angry curiosity and his mental disgust. 

These sentiments stand confessed in Mr. Razumov’s 

memorandum of his first interview with Mine, de S . 

The very words I use in my narrative are written where 
their sincerity cannot be suspected. At any rate, the 
sincerity of their self-revealing intention cannot be. 
Out of those pages, summarizing months here, detailing 
days there, with an almost incredible precision, out of 
that record of contradictory, incoherent thoughts, 
emerges a personality struggling for existence both 
against truth and falsehood; a personality rising to a 
symbolic significance by the revealing nature of its 
individual fate. The record, which could not have 
been meant for any one’s eyes but his own, was not, I 
think, the outcome of that strange impulse of indiscre- 
tion, common to men who lead secret lives, and ac- 
counting for the invariable existence of “compromising 
documents” in all the plots and conspiracies of history. 
Mr. Razumov looked at it, I suppose, as a man looks 
at himself in a mirror, with wonder, perhaps with 
212 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


anguish, with anger or despair. Yes, as a threatened 
man may look fearfully at his own face in the glass, 
formulating to himself reassuring excuses for his ap- 
pearance, marked by the taint of some insidious he- 
reditary disease. 


II 


T he Egeria of the “Russian Mazzini’" produced, at 
first view, a strong effect by the deathlike immO' 
bility of an obviously painted face. The eyes appeared 
extraordinarily brilliant. The figure, in a close-fitting 
dress, admirably made but by no means fresh, had an 
elegant stiffness. The harsh voice, inviting him to 
sit down, the rigidity of the upright attitude, with one 
arm extended along the back of the sofa; the white 
gleam of the big eyeballs setting off the black, fathomless 
stare of the enlarged pupils, impressed Razumov more 
than anything he had seen since his hasty and secret 
departure from St. Petersburg. A witch in Parisian 
clothes, he thought. A portent! He actually hesitated 
in his advance, and did not even comprehend, at first, 
what the harsh voice was saying. 

“ Sit down. Draw your chair nearer me. There. . . 
Razumov sat down. At close quarters the rouged cheek- 
bones, the wrinkles, the fine lines on each side of the 
vivid lips, astounded him. He was being received gra- 
ciously, with a smile which made him think of a grinning 
skull. 

“We have been hearing about you for some time.” 
He did not know what to say, and murmured some 
disconnected words. The grinning - skull effect van- 
ished. 

“And do you know that the general complaint is that 
you' have shown yourself very reserved everywhere?” 

Razumov remained silent for a time, thinking of his 
answer. 


214 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


“I, don’t you see, am a man of action,” he said, 
huskily, glancing upward. 

Peter Ivanovitch stood in portentous, expectant silence 
by the side of his chair. A slight feeling of nausea came 
over Razumov. What could be the relations of these 
two people to each other ? She like a galvanized corpse 
out of some Hoffmann’s tale, he the preacher of feminist 
gospels for all the world and a super-revolutionist be- 
sides! This ancient, painted mummy, with unfathom- 
able eyes, and this burly, bull-necked, deferential . . . 
what was it? Witchcraft, fascination. . . . ‘‘It’s for her 
money,” he thought. ‘‘She has millions!” 

The walls, the floor of the room, were bare like a barn. 
The few pieces of furniture had been discovered in the 
garrets and dragged down into service without having 
been properly dusted, even. It was the refuse the 
banker’s widow had left behind her. The windows, with- 
out curtains, had an indigent, sleepless look. In two of 
them the dirty, yellowy-white blinds had been pulled 
down. All this spoke, not of poverty, but of sordid 
penuriousness. 

The hoarse voice on the sofa spoke angrily: 

‘‘You are looking round, Kirylo Sidorovitch. I have 
been shamefully robbed, positively ruined.” 

A rattling laugh, which seemed beyond her control, 
interrupted her for a moment. 

“A slavish nature would find consolation in the fact 
that the principal robber was an exalted and almost a 
sacrosanct person — a grand duke, in fact. Do you un- 
derstand, Mr. Ribumov? A grand duke. No! You 
have no idea what thieves those people are! Down- 
right thieves!” 

Her bosom heaved, but the arm remained rigidly ex- 
tended along the back of the couch. 

‘‘You will only upset yourself,” breathed out a deep 
voice, which, to Razumov’s startled glance, seemed to 
proceed from under the steady spectacles of Peter 
15 2^5 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 

Ivanovitch, rather than from his lips, which had hardly 
moved. 

“What of that? I say thieves! Voleurs! Voleurs! 

Razumov was quite confounded by this unexpected 
clamor, which had in it something of wailing and croak- 
ing and more than a suspicion of hysteria. 

''Voleurs! Voleurs! Vol , . .” 

“No power on earth can rob you of your genius,” 
shouted Peter Ivanovitch, in an overpowering bass, but 
without stirring, without a gesture of any kind. A 
profound silence fell. 

Razumov remained outwardly impassive. “What is 
the meaning of this performance?” he was asking him- 
self. But, with a preliminary sound of bumping outside 
some door behind him, the lady companion, in a thread- 
bare black skirt and frayed blouse, came in rapidly, 
walking on her heels, and carrying in both hands a big 
Russian samovar, obviously too heavy for her. Razu- 
mov made an instinctive movement to help, which 
startled her so much that she nearly dropped her hissing 
burden. She managed, however, to land it on the 
table, and looked so frightened that Razumov hastened 
to sit down. She produced, then, from an adjacent 
room, four glass tumblers, a tea-pot, and a sugar-basin 
on a black iron tray. 

The harsh voice spoke from the sofa abruptly: 

"Les gdteaux? Have you remembered to bring the 
cakes?” 

Peter Ivanovitch, without a word, marched out onto 
the landing and returned instantly with a parcel wrapped 
up in white glazed paper which he must have extracted 
from the interior of his hat. With imperturbable 
gravity he undid the string and smoothed the paper 
open on a part of the table within reach of Mme. de 

S ’s hand. The lady companion poured out the 

tea, then retired into a distant corner out of everybody’s 
sight, and a conversation began. From time to time 
216 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


Mme. de S extended a clawlike hand glittering 

with costly rings toward the paper of cakes, took up one 
and devoured it, displaying her big false teeth ghoulishly. 
Meantime, she talked in a hoarse tone of the political 
situation in the Balkans. She built great hopes on some 
complication in the Peninsula for arousing a great move- 
ment of national indignation in Russia against “these 
thieves — thieves — ^thieves . ’ ’ 

“You will only upset yourself,” Peter Ivanovitch in- 
terposed, raising his glassy gaze. He smoked cigarettes 
and drank tea in silence, continuously. When he had 
finished a glass he flourished his hand in a beckoning 
manner above his shoulder. At that signal the lady com- 
panion, ensconced in her corner, with round eyes like a 
watchful animal, would dart out to the table and pour 
him out another tumblerful. 

Razumov looked at her once or twice. She was 

anxious, tremulous, though neither Mme. de S nor 

Peter Ivanovitch paid the slightest attention to her. 
“What have they done between them to that forlorn 
creature?” Razumov asked himself. “Have they terri- 
fied her out of her senses with ghosts or simply have they 
only been beating her ?” When she gave him his second 
glass of tea he noticed that her lips trembled in the 
manner of a scared person about to burst into speech. 
But, of course, she said nothing and retired into her 
corner, as if hugging to herself the smile of thanks he 
gave her. 

“She may be worth cultivating,” thought Razumov, 
suddenly. 

He was calming down, getting hold of the actuality 
into which he had been thrown — for the first time, per- 
haps, since Victor Haldin had entered his room, and 
had gone out again. He was distinctly aware of being 

the object of the famous — or notorious — Mme. de S ’s 

ghastly graciousness. 

Mme. de S was pleased to discover that this young 

217 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


man was different from the other types of revolutionist 
members of committees, secret emissaries, vulgar and 
unmannerly fugitive professors, rough students, ex- 
cobblers with apostolic faces, consumptive and ragged 
enthusiasts, Jewish youths, common fellows of all sorts 
that used to come and go around Peter Ivanovitch — 
fanatics, pedants, proletarians all. It was possible to 
talk to this young man of notably good appearance — for 

Mme. de S was not always in a mystical state of 

mind. Razumov’s taciturnity only excited her to a 
quicker, more voluble utterance. It still dealt with the 
Balkans. She knew all the statesmen of that region — 
Turks, Bulgarians, Montenegrins, Roumanians, Greeks, 
Armenians, and nondescripts, young and old, the living 
and the dead. With some money an intrigue could be 
started which would set the Peninsula in a blaze and out- 
rage the sentiment of the Russian people. A cry of 
abandoned brothers could be raised, and then with the 
nation seething with indignation a couple of regiments or 
so would be enough to begin a military revolution in St. 
Petersburg and make an end of these thieves. . . . 

“ Apparently I’ve got only to sit still and listen,” the 
silent Razumov thought to himself. “As to that hairy 
and obscene brute ” (in such terms did Mr. Razumov 
refer mentally to the popular expounder of a feministic 
conception of social state), “as to him, for all his cun- 
ning, he too shall speak out at last.” 

Razumov ceased to think for a moment. Then a 
somber-toned reflection formulated itself to his mind, 
ironical and bitter. “I have the gift of inspiring con- 
fidence.” He heard hims<slf laughing aloud. It was 
like a goad to the painted, shiny-eyed harridan on the 
sofa. 

“You may well laugh!” she cried, hoarsely. “What 
else can one do ? Perfect swindlers, and what base swin- 
dlers at that! Cheap Germans — Holstein - Gottorps ! 
Though, indeed, it’s hardly safe to say who and what 
218 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


they are. A family that counts a creature like Cath- 
erine the Great in its ancestry — you understand!” 

‘‘You are only upsetting yourself,” said Peter Ivano- 
vitch, patiently, but in a firm tone. This admonition 
had its usual effect on the Egeria. She dropped her 
thick, discolored eyelids and changed her position on 
the sofa. All her angular and lifeless movements 
seemed completely automatic now that her eyes were 
closed. Presently she opened them very full. Peter 
Ivanovitch drank tea steadily, without haste. 

‘‘Well, I declare!” She addressed Razumov directly: 
‘‘The people who have seen you on your way here are 
right. You are very reserved. You haven’t said twenty 
words altogether since you came in. You let nothing 
of your thoughts be seen in your face either.” 

‘‘I have been listening, madame,” said Razumov, 
using French for the first time, hesitatingly, not being 
certain of his accent. But it seemed to produce an ex- 
cellent impression. Mme. de S looked meaningly 

into Peter Ivanovitch’s spectacles as if to convey her 
conviction of this young man’s merit. She even nodded 
the least bit in his direction, and Razumov heard her 
murmur under her breath the words ‘‘later on in the 
diplomatic service,” which could not but refer to the 
favorable impression he had made. The fantastic ab- 
surdity of it revolted him, because it seemed to out- 
rage his ruined hopes with the vision of a mock career. 
Peter Ivanovitch, impassive as though he were deaf, 
drank some more tea. Razumov felt that he must say 
something. 

‘‘Yes,” he began, deliberately, as if uttering a medi- 
tated opinion. “Clearly. Even in planning a purely 
military revolution, the temper of the people should be 
taken into account.” 

“You have understood me perfectly. The discon- 
tent should be spiritualized. That is what the ordinary 
head of revolutionary committees will not understand. 

219 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


They aren’t capable of it. For instance, Mordatiev was 
in Geneva last month. Peter Ivanovitch brought him 
here. You know Mordatiev? Well, yes — you have 
heard. They call him an eagle — a hero! He has never 
done half as much as you have. Never attempted— 
not half. . . .” 

Mme. de S agitated herself angularly on the sofa. 

“We, of course, talked to him. And do you know 
what he said to me ? ‘ What have we to do with Balkan 

intrigues? We must simply extirpate the scoundrels.’ 
Extirpate is all very well — ^but what then? The im- 
becile! I screamed at him, but you must spiritualize — 
don’t you understand — spiritualize the discontent. . . .” 

She felt nervously in her pocket for a handkerchief; 
she pressed it to her lips. 

“Spiritualize?” said Razumov, interrogatively, watch- 
ing her heaving breast. The long ends of an old black 
lace scarf she wore over her head slipped off her shoul- 
ders and hung down on each side of her ghastly, rosy 
cheeks. 

“An odious creature,” she burst out again. “Imag- 
ine a man who takes five lumps of sugar in his tea. . . . 
Yes, I said spiritualize! How else can you make dis- 
content effective and universal?” 

“ Listen to this, young man,” Peter Ivanovitch made 
himself heard, solemnly. 

Razumov looked at him suspiciously. 

“Effective and universal? Eh? Some say hunger 
will do that,” he remarked. 

“Yes. I know. Our people are starving in heaps. 
But you can’t make famine universal. And it is not 
despair that we want to create. There is no moral sup- 
port to be got out of that. It is indignation. ...” 

Mme. de S let her thin, extended arm sink on her 

knees. 

“I am not a Mordatiev,” began Razumov. 

** Bien sUr T* murmured Mme. de S . 


220 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


“Though I, too, am ready to say extirpate, extirpate. 
But, in my ignorance of political work, permit me to 
ask: A Balkan — well — intrigue, wouldn’t that take a 
very long time?” 

Peter Ivanovitch got up and moved off quietly to 
stand with his face to the window. Razumov heard a 
door close; he turned his head and perceived that the 
lady companion had scuttled out of the room. 

“ In matters of politics I am a supernaturalist.” Mme. 
de S broke the silence, harshly. 

Peter Ivanovitch moved away from the window and 
struck Razumov lightly on the shoulder. This was a 
signal for leaving, but at the same time he addressed 
Mme. de S in a peculiar, reminding tone : 

“Eleanor!” 

Whatever it meant, she did not seem to hear him. 
She leaned back in the corner of the sofa like a wooden 
figure. The immovable peevishness of the face framed 
in the limp, rusty lace had a character of cruelty. 

“As to extirpating,” she croaked at the attentive 
Razumov, “there is only one class in Russia which must 
be extirpated. Only one. And that class consists of 
only one family. You understand me? That one 
family must be extirpated.” 

Her rigidity was frightful, like the rigor of a corpse 
galvanized into harsh speech and glittering stare by the 
force of murderous hate. The sight fascinated Razumov 
— yet he felt more self-possessed at that moment than 
at any other since he had entered that weirdly bare 
room. He was interested. But the great feminist by 
his side again uttered his appeal; 

“Eleanor!” 

She disregarded it. Her carmine lips moved with an 
extraordinary rapidity. She vaticinated. The liberat- 
ing spirit would use arms before which rivers would part 
like Jordan and ramparts fall down like the walls of 
Jericho. The deliverance from bondage would be ef- 
221 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


fected by plagues and by signs, by wonders and by 
war. The women . . . 

“Eleanor!” 

She ceased; she had heard him at last. She pressed 
her hand to her forehead. 

“What is it? Ah, yes! That girl — the sister of . . .” 

It was Miss Haldin that she meant. That young girl 
and her mother had been leading a very retired life. 
They were provincial ladies — were they not ? The 
mother had been very beautiful — traces were left yet. 
Peter Ivanovitch, when he called there for the first time, 
was greatly struck. . . . But the cold way they received 
him was really surprising. 

“He is one of our national glories,” Mme. de S 

cried out, with sudden vehemence. “All the world 
listens to him.” 

“I don’t know these ladies,” said Razumov, loudly, 
rising from his chair. 

“What are you saying, Kirylo Sidorovitch? I under- 
stand that she was talking to you here, in the garden, the 
other day.” 

“Yes, in the garden,” said Razumov, gloomily. Then, 
with an effort, “She made herself known to me.” 

“ And then ran away from us all,” Mme. de S con- 

tinued, with ghastly vivacity. “After coming to the 
very door! What a peculiar proceeding! Well, I was 
a shy little provincial girl at one time. Yes, Razu- 
mov” (she fell into this familiarity intentionally, with 
an appalling grimace of graciousness. Razumov gave a 
perceptible start). Yes, that’s my origin. A simple 
provincial family.” 

“ You are wonderful,” Peter Ivanovitch uttered, in his 
deepest voice. 

But it was to Razumov that she gave her death’s-head 
smile. Her tone was quite imperious. 

“You must bring the young, wild thing here. She is 
wanted. I reckon upon your success — mind!” 

222 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


“She is not a wild young thing,” muttered Razumov, 
in a surly voice. 

“Well, then — that’s all the same. She may be one of 
those young conceited democrats. Do you know what I 
think ? I think she is very much like you in character. 
There is a smouldering fire of scorn in you. You are 
darkly self-sufficient, but I can see your very soul.” 

Her shiny eyes had a dry, intense stare, which, missing 
Razumov, gave him an absurd notion that she was look- 
ing at something behind him. He cursed himself for an 
impressionable fool, and spoke with forced calmness. 

“What is it you see? Anything resembling me?” 

She moved her rigidly set face from left to right nega- 
tively. 

“Some sort of phantom in my image?” pursued 
Razumov, slowly. “For, I suppose, a soul when it is 
seen is just that. A vain thing. There are phantoms 
of the living as well as of the dead.” 

The tenseness of Mme. de S ’s stare had relaxed, 

and now she looked at Razumov in a silence that be- 
came disconcerting. 

“ I myself have had an experience,” he stammered out, 
as if compelled. “I’ve seen a phantom.” 

The unnaturally red lips moved to frame a question 
harshly. 

“Of a dead person?” 

“No. Living.” 

“A friend?” 

“No.” 

“An enemy?” 

“I hated him.” 

“Ah! It was not a woman, then?” 

“A woman!” repeated Razumov, his eyes looking 

straight into the eyes of Mme. de S . “Why should 

it have been a woman ? And why this conclusion ? Why 
should I not have been able to hate a woman?” 

As a matter of fact, the idea of hating a woman was 
223 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


new to him. At that moment he hated Mme. de S . 

But it was not exactly hate. It was more like the ab- 
horrence that may be caused by a wooden or plaster 
figure of a repulsive kind. And she moved no more than 
if she were such a figure; even her eyes, whose unwinking 
stare plunged into his own, though shining, were lifeless 
as though they were as artificial as her teeth. For the 
first time Razumov became aware of a faint perfume; 
but, faint as it was, it nauseated him exceedingly. Peter 
Ivanovitch tapped him slightly on the shoulder. There- 
upon he bowed, and was about to turn away when he 
received the unexpected favor of a bony, inanimate hand 
extended to him, with the two words in hoarse French: 

“Aw revoirP' 

He bowed over the skeleton hand and left the room 
escorted by the great man, who made him go out first. 
The voice from the sofa cried after them: 

“You remain here, Pierre” 

“Certainly — ma chere amie.” 

But he left the room with Razumov, shutting the door 
behind him. The landing was prolonged into a bare, 
unfurnished corridor, right and left, desolate perspec- 
tives of white-and-gold decoration, without a strip of 
carpet. The very light, pouring through a large win- 
dow at the end, seemed dusty; and a solitary speck re- 
posing on the balustrade of white marble — the silk top- 
hat of the great feminist — asserted itself extremely black 
and glossy in all that crude whiteness. 

Peter Ivanovitch escorted the visitor without open- 
ing his lips. Even whin they had reached the head of 
the stairs, Peter Ivanovitch did not break the silence. 
Razumov’s impulse to continue down the flight and 
out of the house without as much as a nod abandoned 
him suddenly. He stopped on the first step and leaned 
his back against the wall. Below him the great hall, 
with its checkered floor of black and white, seemed 
absurdly large and like some public place where a great 
224 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


power of resonance awaits the provocation of foot- 
falls and voices. As if afraid of awakening the loud 
echoes of that empty house, Razumov adopted a low 
tone. 

“I really have no mind to turn into a dilettante 
spiritualist.’' 

Peter Ivanovitch shook his head slightly, very serious. 

“Or spend my time in spiritual ecstasies or sublime 
meditations upon the gospel of feminism,” continued 
Razumov. “I made my way here for my share of ac- 
tion — action, most respected Peter Ivanovitch! It was 
not the great European writer who attracted me, here, 
to this odious town of liberty. It was somebody much 
greater. It was the idea of the chief which attracted 
me. There are starving young men in Russia who be^ 
lieve in you so much that it seems the only thing that 
keeps them alive in their misery. Think of that, Peter 
Ivanovitch! No! But only think of that!” 

The great man, thus entreated, perfectly motionless 
and silent, was the very image of patient, placid re- 
spectability. 

“Of course, I don’t speak of the people. They are 
brutes,” added Razumov, in the same subdued but 
forcible tone. At this, a protesting murmur issued 
from the “heroic fugitive’s” beard. A murmur of 
authority. 

“Say — children.” 

“No! Brutes!” Razumov insisted, bluntly. 

“But they are sound; they are innocent,” the great 
man pleaded in a whisper. 

“ As far as that goes a brute is sound enough.” Razu- 
mov raised his voice at last. “And you can’t deny the 
natural innocence of a brute. But what’s the use of 
disputing about names. You just try to give to children 
the power and stature of men and see what they will 
be like. You just give it to them and see! . . . But 
never mind; I tell you, Peter Ivanovitch, that half a 

225 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


dozen young men do not come together nowadays in a 
shabby student’s room without your name being whis- 
pered, not as a leader of thought, but as a center of 
revolutionary energies — the center of action. What 
else has drawn me near you, do you think? It is not 
what all the world knows of you, surely. It’s precisely 
what the world at large does not know. I was irre- 
sistibly drawn — let us say impelled, yes, impelled; or 
rather compelled, driven — driven,” repeated Razumov, 
loudly, and ceased, as if startled by the hollow rever- 
beration of the word “driven” along two bare corridors 
and in the great empty hall. 

Peter Ivanovitch did not seem startled in the least. 
The young man could not control a dry, uneasy laugh. 
The great revolutionist remained unmoved with an effect 
of commonplace, homely superiority. 

“Curse him,” said Razumov to himself; “he is wait- 
ing behind his spectacles for me to give myself away.” 
Then aloud, with a satanic enjoyment of the scorn 
prompting him to play with the greatness of the great 
man: 

“Ah, Peter Ivanovitch, if you only knew the force 
which drew — no, which drove me toward you! The ir- 
resistible force.” 

He did not feel any desire to laugh now. This time 
Peter Ivanovitch moved his head sideways, knowingly, 
as much as to say, “Don’t I?” This expressive move- 
ment was almost imperceptible. Razumov went on 
in secret derision: 

“All these days you have been trying to read me, 
Peter Ivanovitch. That is natural. I have perceived 
it and I have been frank. Perhaps you may think I 
have not been very expansive? But with a man like 
you it was not needed, it would have looked like an im- 
pertinence, perhaps. And, besides, we Russians are 
prone to talk too much as a rule. I have always felt 
that. And yet, as a nation, we are dumb. I assure 
226 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 

you that I am not likely to talk to you so much again 
Ha! ha!” 

Razumov, still keeping on the lower step, came a little 
nearer to the great man. 

“You have been condescending enough. I quite un- 
derstand it was to lead me on. You must render me 
the justice that I have not tried to please. I have been 
impelled, compelled, or rather sent — ^let us say sent — 
toward you for a work that no one but myself can do. 
You would call it a harmless delusion; a ridiculous de- 
lusion, at which you don’t even smile. It is absurd of 
me to talk like this, yet some day you shall remember 
these words, I hope. Enough of this. Here I stand 
before you — confessed ! But one thing more I must add 
to complete it: a mere blind tool I can never consent 
to be.” 

Whatever acknowledgment Razumov was prepared 
for, he was not prepared to have both his hands seized in 
the great man’s grasp. The swiftness of the movement 
was aggressive enough to startle. The burly feminist 
could not have been quicker had his purpose been to 
jerk Razumov treacherously up on the landing and 
bundle him behind one of the numerous closed doors 
near by. This idea actually occurred to Razumov. 
His hands being released after a darkly eloquent 
squeeze, he smiled with a beating heart straight at 
the beard and the spectacles hiding that impenetrable 
man. 

He thought to himself (it stands confessed in his hand- 
writing) : “I won’t move from here till he either speaks 
or turns away. This is a duel.” Many seconds passed 
without a sign or a sound. 

“Yes, yes,” the great man said, hurriedly, in subdued 
tones, as if the whole thing had been a stolen, breathless 
interview. “Exactly. Come to see us here in a few 
days. This must be gone into deeply — deeply, between 
you and me. Quite to the bottom. To the . . . and, 

227 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


by-the-by, you must bring along Natalia Viktorovna — 
you know, the Haldin girl. . . 

“Am I to take this as my first instruction from you?” 
inquired Razumov, stiffly. 

Peter Ivanovitch seemed perplexed by this new at- 
titude. 

“Ah! h’m! You are naturally the proper person — 
la personne indiquSe. Every one shall be wanted pres- 
ently. Every one.” 

He bent down from the landing over Razumov, who 
had lowered his eyes. 

“The moment of action approaches,” he murmured. 

Razumov did not look up. He did not move till he 
heard the door of the drawing-room close behind the 
greatest of feminists returning to his painted Egeria. 
Then he walked down slowly into the hall. The door 
stood open, and the shadow of the house was lying aslant 
over the greatest part of the terrace. While crossing it 
slowly he lifted his hat and wiped his damp forehead, 
expelling his breath with force to get rid of the last ves- 
tiges of the air he had been breathing inside. He looked 
at the palms of his hands and rubbed them gently 
against his thighs. 

He felt, bizarre as it may seem, as though another 
self, an independent sharer of his mind, had been able to 
view his whole person very distinctly indeed. “This is 
curious,” he thought. After a while he formulated his 
opinion of it in the mental ejaculation, “Beastly!” 
This disgust vanished before a marked uneasiness. “ This 
is an effect of nervous exhaustion,” he reflected, with 
weary sagacity. “How am I to go on day after day if 
I have no more power of resistance — moral resistance?” 

He followed the path at the foot of the terrace. 
“Moral resistance, moral resistance,” he kept on re- 
peating these words mentally. Moral endurance. Yes, 
that was the necessity of the situation. An immense 
longing to make his way oqt of these grounds and 

228 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


to the other end of the town, of throwing himself on his 
bed and going to sleep for hours, swept everything clean 
out of his mind for a moment. “Is it possible that I 
am but a weak creature, after all?'’ he asked himself, in 
sudden alarm. “Eh! What’s that?” 

He gave a start as if awakened from a dream. He 
even swayed a little before recovering himself. 

“Ah! You stole away from us quietly to walk about 
here,” he said. 

The lady companion stood before him, but how she 
came there he had not the slightest idea. Her folded 
arms were closely cherishing the cat. 

“I have been unconscious as I walked, it’s a positive 
fact,” said Razumov to himself in wonder. He raised 
his hat with marked civility. 

The sallow woman blushed duskily.* She had her 
invariably scared expression, as if somebody had just 
disclosed to her some terrible news. But she held her 
ground, Razumov noticed, without timidity. “She is 
incredibly shabby,” he thought. In the sunlight her 
black costume looked greenish, with here and there 
threadbare patches where the stuff seemed decomposed 
by age into a velvety, black, furry state. Her very 
hair and eyebrows looked shabby. Razumov wondered 
whether she were sixty years old. Her figure, though, 
was young enough. He observed that she did not ap- 
pear starved, but rather as though she had been fed on 
unwholesome scraps and leavings of plates. 

Razumov smiled amiably and moved out of her way. 
She turned her head to keep her scared eyes on 
him. 

“I know what you have been told in there,” she 
affirmed, without preliminaries. Her tone, in contrast 
with her manner, had an unexpectedly assured character 
which put Razumov at his ease. 

“Do you? You must have heard all sorts of talk on 
many occasions in there.” 


229 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


She varied her phrase with the same incongruous 
effect of positiveness. 

“I know to a certainty what you have been told to 
do.” 

“Really?” Razumov shrugged his shoulders a little. 
He was about to pass on with a bow, when a sudden 
thought struck him. “Yes. To be sure! In your 
confidential position you are aware of many things,” 
he murmured, looking at the cat. 

The animal got a momentary convulsive hug from 
the lady companion. 

“Everything was disclosed to me a long time ago,” 
she said. 

“Everything,” Razumov repeated, absently. 

“Peter Ivanovitch is an awful despot,” she jerked 
out. 

Razumov went on studying the stripes on the gray fur 
of the cat. 

“An iron will is an integral part of such a tempera- 
ment. How else could he be a leader? And I think 
that you are mistaken in — ” 

“There!” she cried. “He tells me that I am mis- 
taken. But I tell you, all the same, that he cares for no 
one.” She jerked her head up. “Don't you bring that 
girl here. That's what you have been told to do — to 
bring that girl here. Listen to me; you had better tie 
a stone round her neck and throw her into the lake.” 

Razumov had a sensation of chill and gloom, as if a 
heavy cloud had passed over the sun. 

“The girl?” he said. “What have I to do with her?” 

“But you have been told to bring Nathalie Haldin 
here. Am I not right? Of course I am right. I was 
not in the room, but I know. I know Peter Ivanovitch 
sufficiently well. He is a great man. Great men are 
horrible. Well, that's it. Have nothing to do with her. 
That’s the best you can do, unless you want her to be- 
come like me — disillusioned! Disillusioned!” 

230 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


“Like you,“ repeated Razumov, glaring at her face, 
as devoid of all comeliness of feature and complexion as 
the most miserable beggar is of money. He smiled, still 
feeling chilly, a peculiar sensation which annoyed him. 
“Disillusioned as to Peter Ivanovitch. Is that all you 
have lost?” 

She declared, looking frightened, but with immense 
conviction, “Peter Ivanovitch stands for everything.” 
Then she added, in another tone, “Keep the girl away 
from this house.” 

“And are you absolutely inciting me to disobey Peter 
Ivanovitch just because — ^because you are disillusioned ?” 

She began to blink. 

“Directly I saw you for the first time I was com- 
forted. You took your hat off to me. You looked as 
if one could trust you. Oh!” 

She shrank before Razumov’s savage snarl of, “I 
have heard something like this before.” 

She was so confounded that she could do nothing but 
blink for a long time. 

“ It was your humane manner,” she explained, plain- 
tively. “ I have been starving for, I won’t say kindness, 
but just for a little civility, for I don’t know how long. 
And now you are angry . . 

“But no, on the contrary,” he protested. “I am 
very glad you trust me. It’s possible that later on I 
may . . .” 

“Yes, if you were to get ill,” she interrupted, eagerly, 
“or meet some bitter trouble, you would find I am not 
a useless fool. You have only to let me know. I will 
come to you. I will, indeed. And I will stick to you. 
Misery and I are old acquaintances — ^but this life here 
is worse than starving.” 

She paused anxiously, then, in a voice for the first 
time sounding really timid, she added: 

“Or if you were engaged in some dangerous work. 
Sometimes a humble companion — I would not want to 
16 231 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


know anything. I would follow you with joy. I could 
carry out orders. I have the courage.” 

Razumov looked attentively at the scared, round 
eyes, at the withered, sallow, round cheeks. They were 
quivering about the corners of the mouth. 

“She wants to escape from here,” he thought. 

“Suppose I were to tell you that I am engaged in 
dangerous work,” he uttered, slowly. 

She pressed the cat to her threadbare bosom with a 
breathless exclamation. “Ah!” Then, not much above 
a whisper, “Under Peter Ivanovitch?” 

“No, not under Peter Ivanovitch.” 

He read a scared admiration in her eyes and made 
an effort to smile. 

“Then — ^alone?” 

He held up his closed hand with the index raised. 

“Like this finger,” he said. 

She was trembling slightly. But it occurred to 
Razumov that they might have been observed from 
the house, and he became anxious to be gone. She 
blinked, raising up to him her puckered face, and 
seemed to beg mutely to be told something more, to 
be given a word of encouragement for her starving, 
grotesque, and pathetic devotion. 

“Can we be seen from the house?” asked Razumov, 
confidentially. 

She answered, without showing, the slightest surprise 
at the question: 

“ No, we can’t, on account of this end of the stables.” 
And she added, with an acuteness which surprised 
Razumov: “But anybody looking out of an up-stairs 
window would know that you have not passed through 
the gates yet.” 

“Who’s likely to spy out of the window?” queried 
Razumov. “Peter Ivanovitch?” 

She nodded. 

“Why should he trouble his head?” 

232 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


“He expects somebody this afternoon.” 

“You know the person?” 

“There’s more than one.” 

She had lowered her eyelids. Razumov looked at her 
curiously. 

“Of course. You hear everything they say.” 

She murmured without any animosity, 

“So do the tables and chairs.” 

He understood that the bitterness accumulated in the 
heart of that helpless creature had got into her veins and, 
like some subtle poison, had decomposed her fidelity to 
that hateful pair. It was a great piece of luck for him, he 
reflected; because women are seldom venal after the 
manner of men, who can be bought for material consider- 
ations. She would be a good ally, though it was not 
likely that she was allowed to hear as much as the tables 
and chairs of the Chateau Borel. That could not be 
expected. But still . . . And, at any rate, she could 
be made to talk. 

When she looked up her eyes met the fixed stare of 
Razumov, who began to speak at once. 

“Well, well, dear . . . but, upon my word, I haven’t 
the pleasure of knowing your name yet. Isn’t it 
strange?” 

For the first time she made a movement of the 
shoulders. 

“Is it strange? No one is told my name. No one 
cares. No one talks to me, no one writes to me. My 
parents don’t even know if I am alive. I have no use 
for a name, and I have almost forgotten it myself.” 

Razumov murmured, gravely: “Yes, but still . . .” 

She went on much slower, with indifference: 

“You may call me Tekla, then. My poor Andrei 
called me so. I was devoted to him. He lived in 
wretchedness and suffering and died in misery. That 
is the lot of all us Russians — nameless Russians. There 
is nothing else for us, and no hope anywhere, unless . . 

233 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


“Unless what?” 

“Unless all these people -with names are done away 
with,” she finished, blinking and pursing up her lips. 

“ It will be easier to call you Tekla, as you direct me,” 
said Razumov, “if you consent to call me Kirylo when 
we are talking like this — quietly — only you and me.” 

And he said to himself: “Here’s a being who must be 
terribly afraid of the world, else she would have run away 
from this situation before.” Then he reflected that the 
mere fact of leaving the great man abruptly would make 
her a suspect. She could expect no support or counte- 
nance from any one. This revolutionist was not fit for 
an independent existence. 

She moved with him a few steps, blinking and nursing 
the cat with a small balancing movement of her arms. 

“ Yes — only you and I. That’s how I was with my poor 
Andrei, only he was dying, killed by those official brutes 
— while you! You are strong! You kill the monsters. 
You have done a great deed. Peter Ivanovitch himself 
must consider you. Well — don’t forget me — especially 
if you are going back to work in Russia. I could fol- 
low you, carrying anything that was wanted — at a dis- 
tance, you know. Or I could watch for hours at the 
corner of a street if necessary, in wet or snow — yes, I 
could — all day long. Or I could write for you dangerous 
documents, lists of names or instructions, so that in case 
of mischance the handwriting could not compromise you. 
And you need not be afraid if they were to catch me. 
I would know how to keep dumb. We women are not so 
easily daunted by pain. I heard Peter Ivanovitch say 
it is our blunt nerves or something. We can stand it 
better. And it’s true; I would just as soon bite my 
tongue out and throw it at them as not. What’s the 
good of speech to me? Who would ever want to hear 
what I could say? Ever since I closed the eyes of my 
poor Andrei I haven’t ever met a man who seemed to 
care for the sound of my voice. I should never have 

234 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


spoken to you if the very first time you appeared here 
you had not taken notice of me so nicely. I could not 
help speaking of you to that charming, dear girl. Oh, 
the sweet creature! And strong! One can see that at 
once. If you have a heart, don’t let her ever set her 
foot in here. Good-by!” 

Razumov caught her by the arm. Her emotion at 
being thus seized manifested itself by a short struggle, 
after which she stood still, not looking at him. 

” But you can tell me,” he spoke in her ear, “why they 
— these people in that house there — are so anxious to 
get hold of her?” 

She freed herself to turn upon him, as if made angry 
by the question. 

‘‘Don’t you understand that Peter Ivanovitch must 
direct, inspire, influence? It is the breath of his life. 
There can never be too many disciples. He can’t bear 
thinking of any one escaping him. And a woman, too! 
There is nothing to be done without women, he says. 
He has written it. He — ” 

The young man was staring at her passion when she 
broke off suddenly and ran away behind the stable. 


Ill 


R AZUMOV, thus left to himself, took the direction 
of the gate. But on this day of many conversa- 
tions he discovered that very probably he could not 
leave the grounds without having to hold another 
one. 

Stepping in view from beyond the lodge appeared the 
expected visitors of Peter Ivanovitch in a small party 
composed of two men and a woman. They noticed him, 
too, immediately, and stopped short as if to consult. 
But in a moment the woman, moving aside, motioned 
with her arm to the two men, who, leaving the drive at 
once, struck across the large, neglected lawn, or, rather, 
grass-plot, and made directly for the house. The woman 
remained on the path waiting for Razumov’s approach. 
She had recognized him. He, too, had recognized her 
at the first glance. He had been made known to her at 
Zurich, where he had broken his journey while on his 
way from Dresden. They had been much together for 
the three days of his stay. 

She had on the very same costume in which he had 
seen her first. A blouse of crimson silk made her 
noticeable at a distance. With that she wore a short 
brown skirt and a leather belt. Her complexion was 
the color of coffee and milk, but very clear; her eyes 
black and glittering, her figure erect. A lot of thick hair, 
nearly white, was done up loosely under a dusty Tyro- 
lese hat of dark cloth, which seemed to have lost some 
of its trimmings. 

The expression of her face was grave, intent ; so grave 
236 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


that Razumov, after approaching her close, felt obliged 
to smile. She greeted him with a manly hand-grasp. 

“What? Are you going away?” she exclaimed. 
“How is that, Razumov?” 

“I am going away because I haven’t been asked to 
stay,” Razumov answered, returning the pressure of 
her hand with much less force than she had put 
into it. 

She jerked her head sideways like one who understands. 
Meantime, Razumov’s eyes had strayed after the two 
men. They were crossing the grass-plot obliquely, 
without haste, looking straight before them at the house. 
The shorter of the two was buttoned up in a narrow 
overcoat of some thin, gray material which came nearly 
to his heels. His companion, much taller and broader, 
wore a short, close-fitting jacket and tight trousers 
tucked into shabby top-boots. 

The woman, who had sent them out of Razumov’s 
way, apparently, spoke in a businesslike voice. 

“I had to come rushing from Zurich on purpose to 
meet the train and take these two along here to see Peter 
Ivanovitch. I’ve just managed it.” 

“Ah! indeed,” Razumov said, perfunctorily, and very 
vexed at her staying behind to talk to him. “From 
Zurich — yes, of course. And these two, they come 
from . . .” 

She interrupted, without emphasis: 

“ From quite another direction. From a distance, too. 
A considerable distance.” 

Razumov shrugged his shoulders. The two men from 
a distance, after having reached the wall of the terrace, 
disappeared suddenly at its foot as if the earth had 
opened to swallow them up. 

“Oh, well, they have just come from America.” The 
woman in the crimson blouse shrugged her shoulders, too, 
a little before making that statement. “The time is 
drawing near,” she interjected, as if speaking to herself. 

237 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


“ I did not tell them who you were. Yakovlitch would 
have wanted to embrace you.” 

“Is that he with the wisp of hair hanging from his 
chin, in the long coat?” 

“You’ve guessed aright. That’s Yakovlitch.” 

“And they could not find their way here from the 
station without you coming on purpose from Zurich to 
show it to them. Verily without women we can do 
nothing. So it stands written, and, apparently, so it is.” 

He was conscious of an immense lassitude under his 
effort to be sarcastic. And he could see that she had de- 
tected it with those steady, brilliant black eyes. 

“What is the matter with you?” 

“ I don’t know. Nothing. I’ve had a devil of a day. 
All day long.” 

She waited with her black eyes fixed on his face. 
Then: 

“What of that? You men are so impressionable and 
self-conscious. One da}^ is like another — hard, hard, 
and there’s an end of it, till the great day comes. I 
came over for a very good reason. They wrote to warn 
Peter Ivanovitch of their arrival. But where from? 
Only from Cherbourg on a bit of ship’s note-paper. Any- 
body could have done that. Yakovlitch has lived for 
years and years in America. I am the only one at hand 
who had known him well in the old days. I knew him 
very well indeed. So Peter Ivanovitch telegraphed, 
asking me to come. It’s natural enough, is it not?” 

“You came to vouch for his identity?” inquired 
Razumov. 

“Yes. Something of the kind. Fifteen years of a 
life like his make changes in a man. Lonely like a crow 
in a strange country. When I think of Yakovlitch be- 
fore he went to America — ” 

The softness in the low tone of these words caused 
Razumov to glance at her sideways. The black eyes 
were looking away; she had plunged the fingers of her 

238 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


right hand deep into the mass of nearly white hair, and 
stirred them there absently. When she withdrew her 
hand the little hat perched on the top of her head re- 
mained slightly tilted, with a queer, inquisitive effect, 
contrasting strongly with the reminiscent murmur that 
escaped her. 

“We were not in our first youth even then. But a 
man is a child always.” 

Razumov thought, suddenly: “They have been living 
together.” Then aloud: 

“Why didn’t you follow him to America?” he asked, 
point-blank. 

She looked up at him with a perturbed air. 

“Don’t you remember what was going on fifteen years 
ago ? It was a time of activity. The Revolution has its 
history by this time. You are in it and yet you don’t 
seem to know it. Yakovlitch went away then on a mis- 
sion; I went back to Russia. It had to be so. After- 
ward there was nothing for him to come back to.” 

“Ah! indeed,” muttered Razumov, with affected sur- 
prise. “Nothing!” 

“What are you trying to insinuate?” she exclaimed, 
quickly. “ Well, and what then if he did get discouraged 
a little? . . .” 

“He looks like a Yankee, with that goatee hanging 
from his chin. A regular Uncle Sam,” growled Raz- 
umov. “Well, and you? You who went to Russia? 
You did not get discouraged.” 

“Never mind. Yakovlitch is a man who cannot be 
doubted. He, at any rate, is the right sort.” 

Her black, penetrating gaze remained fixed upon 
Razumov while she spoke and for a moment afterward. 

“Pardon me,” Razumov inquired, coldly, “but does it 
mean that you, for instance, think that I am not the 
right sort?” 

She made no protest, gave no sign of having heard the 
question; she continued looking at him in a manner 

239 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


which he judged not to be absolutely unfriendly. In 
Zurich, when he passed through, she had taken him 
under her charge, in a way, and was with him from 
morning till night during his stay of two days. She 
took him round to see several people. At first she talked 
to him a great deal and rather unreservedly, but always 
avoiding strictly any reference to herself; toward the 
middle of the second day she fell silent, attending him 
zealously as before, and even seeing him off at the rail- 
way station, where she pressed his hand firmly through 
the lowered carriage window, and, stepping back with- 
out a word, waited till the train moved. He had noticed 
that she was treated with quiet regard. He knew noth- 
ing of her parentage, nothing of her private history or 
political record; he judged her, from his own private 
point of view, as being a distinct danger in his path. 
Judged is not, perhaps, the right word. It was more of a 
feeling, the summing-up of slight impressions aided by the 
discovery that he could not despise her as he despised all 
the others. He had not expected to see her again so soon. 

No, decidedly; her expression was not unfriendly. 
Yet he perceived an acceleration in the beat of his heart. 
This conversation could not be abandoned at that point. 
He went on in accents of scrupulous inquiry. 

“ Is it, perhaps, because I don’t seem to accept blindly 
every development of the general doctrine — such, for 
instance, as the feminism of our great Peter Ivanovitch ? 
If that is what makes me suspect, then I can only say I 
would scorn to be a slave even to an idea.” 

She had been looking at him all the time, not as a 
listener looks at one, but as if his words he chose to say 
were only of secondary interest. When he finished she 
slipped her hand, by a sudden and decided movement, 
under his arm and impelled him gently toward the gate of 
the grounds. He felt her firmness and obeyed the im- 
pulsion at once just as the other two men had, a moment 
before, obeyed unquestioningly the wave of her hand. 

240 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


They made a few steps like this. 

“No, Razumov, your ideas are probably all right,** 
she said. “You may be valuable — very valuable. 
What’s the matter with you is that you don’t like 
us.’* 

She released him. He met her with a frosty smile. 

“Am I expected then to have love as well as con- 
victions?” 

She shrugged her shoulders. 

“You know very well what I mean. People have 
been thinking you not quite whole-hearted. I have 
heard that opinion from one side and another. But I 
have understood you at the end of the first day. . . .*’ 

Razumov interrupted her, speaking steadily. 

“I assure you that your perspicacity is at fault here.** 

“What phrases he uses!” she exclaimed, parentheti- 
cally. “Ah! Kirylo Sidorovitch, you, like other men, 
are fastidious, full of self-love, and afraid of trifles. 
Moreover, you had no training. What you want is to be 
taken in hand by some woman. I am sorry I am not 
staying here a few days. I am going back to Zurich 
to-morrow, and shall take Yakovlitch with me most 
likely.” 

This information relieved Razumov. 

“ I am sorry, too,” he said. “But all the same, I don’t 
think you understand me.” 

She released his arm. He breathed more freely; but 
at the last moment she asked: 

“ And how did you hit it off with our Peter Ivanovitch ? 
You have seen a good deal of each other. How is it be- 
tween you two?” 

Not knowing what answer to make, the young man 
inclined his head slowly. 

Her lips had been parted in expectation. She pressed 
them together, and seemed to reflect. 

“That’s all right.” 

This had a sound of finality, but she did not leave 

241 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


him. It was impossible to guess what she had in her 
mind. Razumov muttered : 

“It is not me that you should have asked that ques- 
tion. In a moment you shall see Peter Ivanovitch him- 
self, and the subject will come up naturally. He will be 
curious to know what has delayed you so long in this 
garden.” 

“No doubt Peter Ivanovitch will have something to 
say to me. Several things. He may even speak of you 
— question me. Peter Ivanovitch is inclined to trust 
me generally.” 

“Question you? That’s very likely.” 

She smiled, half serious. 

“Well — and what shall I say to him?” 

“ I don’t know. You may tell him of your discovery.” 

“What’s that?” 

“Why — my lack of love for . . .” 

“Oh! That’s between ourselves,” she interrupted, it 
was hard to say whether in jest or earnest. 

“I see that you want to tell Peter Ivanovitch some- 
thing in my favor,” said Razumov, with grim playful- 
ness. “Well, then you could tell him that I am very 
much in earnest about my mission. I mean to succeed.” 

“You have been given a mission?” she exclaimed, 
quickly. 

“ It amounts to that. I have been told to bring about 
a certain event.” 

She looked at him searchingly. 

“A mission,” she repeated, very grave and interested 
2,11 at once. “What sort of mission?” 

“Something in the nature of propaganda work.” 

“Ah! Far away from here?” 

“No. Not very far,” said Razumov, restraining a 
sudden desire to laugh, though he did not feel joyous in 
the least. 

“ So !” she said, thoughtfully. “ Well, I am not asking 
questions. It’s sufficient that Peter Ivanovitch should 
242 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


know what each of us is doing. Everything is bound to 
come right in the end.’* 

“You think so?” 

“ I don’t think, young man. I just simply believe it.” 

“And is it to Peter Ivanovitch that you owe that 
faith?” 

She did not answer the question, and they stood idle, 
silent, as if reluctant to part from each other. 

“ That’s just like a man,” she murmured at last. “ As 
if it were possible to tell how a belief comes to one.” 
Her thin, Mephistophelian eyebrows moved sinuously a 
little. “Truly there are millions of people in Russia 
who would envy the life of dogs in this country. It is a 
horror and a shame to confess that even between our- 
selves. One must believe for very pity. This can’t go 
on. No ! It can’t go on. For twenty years I have been 
coming and going, looking neither to the left nor to the 
right. . . . What are you smiling to yourself for? You 
are only at the beginning. You have begun well, but 
you just wait till you have trodden every particle of 
yourself under your feet in your comings and goings. 
For that is what it comes to. You’ve got to trample 
down every particle of your own feelings; for to stop 
you cannot, you must not. I have been young, too — 
but perhaps you think that I am complaining — eh ?” 

“I don’t think anything of the sort,” protested Razu- 
mov, indifferently. 

“I dare say you don’t, you dear, superior creature. 
You don’t care.” 

She plunged her fingers into the bunch of hair on the 
left side, and that brusque movement had the effect of 
setting the Tyrolese hat straight on her head. She 
frowned under it without animosity, in the manner of 
an investigator. Razumov averted his face carelessly. 

“ You men are all alike. You mistake luck for merit. 
You do it in good faith, too! I would not be too hard 
on you. It’s masculine nature. You men are ridicu- 

243 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


lously pitiful in your aptitude to cherish childish illu^ 
sions down to the very grave. There is a lot of us who 
have been at work for fifteen years — I mean constantly — ■ 
trying one way after another, under ground and above 
ground, looking neither to the right nor to the left! I 
can talk about it. I have been one of these that never 
rested. There! What’s the use of talking. Look at my 
gray hairs! And here two babies come along — I mean 
you and Haldin — you come along and manage to strike 
a blow at the first try.” 

At the name of Haldin falling from the rapid and 
energetic lips of the woman revolutionist, Razumov had 
the usual brusque consciousness of the irrevocable. But 
in all the months which had passed over his head he had 
become hardened to the experience. The consciousness 
was no longer accompanied by the blank dismay and 
the blind anger of the early days. He had argued him- 
self into new beliefs; and he had made for himself a 
mental atmosphere of gloomy and sardonic reverie, a 
sort of murky medium through which the event appeared 
like a featureless shadow having vaguely the shape of a 
man, extremely familiar yet utterly inexpressive, except 
for its air of discreet waiting in the dusk. It was not 
alarming. 

“What was he like?” the woman revolutionist asked, 
unexpectedly. 

“What was he like?” repeated Razumov, making a 
painful effort not to turn upon her savagely. But he 
relieved himself by laughing a little, while he stole a 
glance at her out of the corners of his eyes. She looked 
disturbed by this reception of her inquiry. 

“How like a woman!” he went on. “What is the 
good of concerning yourself with his appearance ? What- 
ever it was, he is removed beyond all feminine in- 
fluences now.” 

A frown, making three folds at the root of her nose, 
accentuated the Mephistophelian slant of her eyebrows- 
244 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


“You suffer, Razumov,” she suggested, in her low, 
confident voice, 

“ What nonsense !“ Razumov faced the woman fairly. 
“But, now I think of it, I am not sure that he is beyond 
the influence of one woman, at least. The one over there 

— Madame de S , you know. Formerly the dead 

were allowed to rest, but now it seems they are at the 
beck and call of a crazy old harridan. We revolutionists 
make wonderful discoveries. It is true that they are not 
exactly our own. We have nothing of our own. But 
couldn’t the friend of Peter Ivanovitch satisfy your 
feminine curiosity? Couldn’t she conjure him up for 
you ?’’ he jested like a man in pain. 

Her concentrated frowning expression relaxed, and 
she said, a little wearily: “Let us hope she will make an 
effort and conjure up some tea for us. But that is by 
no means certain. I am tired, Razumov.’’ 

“You tired! What a confession! Well, there has 
been tea up there. I had some. If you hurry on after 
Yakovlitch, instead of wasting your time with such an 
unsatisfactory, skeptical person as myself, you may find 
the ghost of it — ^the cold ghost of it — still lingering in the 
temple. But as to you being tired, I can hardly believe 
it. We are not supposed to be. We mustn’t. We 
can’t. The other day I read in some paper or other 
an alarmist article on the tireless activity of the Rev- 
olutionary parties. It impresses the world. It’s our 
prestige.’’ 

“He flings out continually these flouts and sneers.*’ 
The woman in the crimson blouse spoke as if appealing 
quietly to a third person, but her black eyes never left 
Razumov’s face. “And what for, pray? Simply be- 
cause some of his conventional notions are shocked, some 
of his petty masculine standards. A true man’s childish- 
ness! You might think he was one of those nervous 
sensitives that come to a bad end. And yet,’’ she went 
on, after a short reflective pause and changing the mode 

245 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


of her address — “and yet I know something which makes 
me think you are a man of character, Kirylo Sidorovitch. 
Yes! indeed — I know.” 

There was something mysteriously positive in this 
assertion which startled Razumov. Their eyes met. 
He looked away and, through the bars of the rusty gate, 
stared at the clean wide road shaded by the leafy trees. 
An electric tram-car, quite empty, ran past the gate with 
a metallic rustle. It seemed to him he would have given 
anything to be sitting inside all alone. He was inex- 
pressibly weary, weary in every fiber of his body, but he 
had a reason for not being the first to break off the 
conversation. It would not be sound diplomacy. And 
there was his task — his ordeal. At any instant, in the 
visionary and criminal babble of revolutions, some mo- 
mentous words might fall on his ear — from her lips, from 
anybody’s lips. As long as he managed to preserve a 
clear mind and to keep down his irritability there was 
nothing to fear. The only condition of success and 
safety was indomitable will-power, he reminded himself. 

He longed to be on the other side of the bars, as though 
he were actually a prisoner within the grounds of this 
center of revolutionary plots, of this house of folly, of 
blindness, of villainy and crime. Silently he indulged 
his wounded spirit in a feeling of an immense moral and 
mental remoteness. He did not even smile when he 
heard her repeat the words : 

“ Yes ! A strong character . ’ ’ 

He continued to gaze through the bars like a moody 
prisoner, not thinking of escape, but merely pondering 
upon the faded memories of freedom. 

“If you don’t look out,” he mumbled, still looking 
away, “you shall certainly miss seeing as much as the 
mere ghost of that tea.” 

She was not to be shaken off in such a way. As a 
matter of fact, he had not expected to succeed. 

“Never mind, it will be no great loss. I mean the 
246 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


missing of her tea, and only the ghost of it at that. As 
to the lady, you must understand that she has her 
positive use. See that, Razumov.” 

He turned his head at this imperative appeal and saw 
the woman revolutionist njaking the motions of counting 
money into the palm of her hand. 

“That’s what it is. You see?’’ 

Razumov uttered a slow “I see’’ and returned to his 
prisoner-like gazing upon the neat and shady road. 

“Material means must be obtained in some way, and 
this is easier than breaking into banks. More certain, 
too. There! I am joking. . . . What is he muttering 
to himself now?’’ she cried, under her breath. 

“My admiration of Peter Ivanovitch’s devoted self- 
sacrifice, that’s all. It’s enough to make one sick.’’ 

“Oh, you squeamish, masculine creature! Sick! 
Makes him sick! And what do you know of the truth of 
it? There’s no looking into the secrets of the heart. 
Peter Ivanovitch knew her years ago, in his worldly days 
when he was a young officer in the Guards. It is not for 
us to judge an inspired person. That’s where you men 
have an advantage. You are inspired sometimes both 
in thought and action. I have always admitted that 
when you are inspired, when you manage to throw off 
your masculine cowardice and prudishness you are not 
to be equaled by us. Only, how seldom . . . Whereas 
the silliest woman can always be made of use. And why ? 
Because we have passion, unappeasable passion ... I 
should like to know what he is smiling at.’’ 

“I am not smiling,’’ protested Razumov, gloomily. 

“Well! How is one to call it? You made some sort 
of face. Yes, I know! You men can love here and hate 
there and desire something or other — and you make a 
great to-do about it, and you call it passion! Yes! 
While it lasts. But we women are in love with love, 
and with hate, with these very things, I tell you, and 
with desire itself. That’s why we can’t be bribed off 

17 247 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


so easily as you men. In life, you see, there is not much 
choice for one. You have either to rot or to bum. And 
there is not one of us, painted or unpainted, that would 
not rather burn than rot.” 

She spoke with energy but in a matter-of-fact tone. 
Razumov’s attention had wandered away on a track of 
its own — outside the bars of the gate — but not out of 
earshot. He stuck his hands into the pockets of his 
coat. 

“Rot or burn! Powerfully stated. Painted or un- 
painted! Very vigarous. Painted or . . . Do tell me. 
She would be infernally jealous of him, wouldn’t she?” 

“Who? What? The Baroness? Eleanor Maxi- 
movna? Jealous of Peter I vanovitch ? Heavens! Are 
these the questions the man’s mind is running on ? Such 
a thing is not to be thought of!” 

“Why? Can’t a wealthy old woman be jealous ? Or 
are they all pure spirits together?” 

“But what put it into your head to ask such a ques- 
tion?” she wondered. 

“Nothing. I just asked. Masculine frivolity, if you 
like.” 

“I don’t like,” she retorted at once. “It is not the 
time to be frivolous. What are you flinging your very 
heart against ? Or perhaps you are only playing a 
part.” 

Razumov had felt that woman’s observation of him 
like a physical contact, like a hand resting lightly on his 
shoulder. At that moment he received the mysterious 
impression of her having made up her mind for a closer 
grip. He stiffened himself inwardly to bear it without 
betraying himself. 

“Playing a part,” he repeated, presenting to her an 
unmoved profile. “It must be done very badly since 
you see through the assumption.” 

She watched him, her forehead drawn into perpen- 
dicular folds, the thin, black eyebrows diverging upward 
248 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 

like the antennae of the insect. He added, hardly 
audibly : 

“You are mistaken. I am doing it no more than the 
rest of us.” 

“Who is doing it?” she snapped out. 

“Who? Everybody,” he said, impatiently. “You 
are a materialist, aren’t you?” 

“Eh! My dear soul, I have outlived all that non- 
sense.” 

“But you must remember the definition of Cabanis: 
‘Man is a digestive tube.’ I imagine now . . .” 

“I spit on him.” 

“What? On Cabanis? All right. But you can’t 
ignore the importance of a good digestion. The joy of 
life — you know the joy of life? — depends on a sound 
stomach, whereas a bad digestion inclines one to skepti- 
cism, incredulity, breeds black fancies and thoughts of 
death. These are facts ascertained by physiologists. 
Well, I assure you that ever since I came over from 
Russia I have been stuffed with indigestible foreign con- 
coctions of the most nauseating kind — pah!” 

“You are joking,” she murmured, incredulously. He 
assented in a detached way. 

“Yes. It is all a joke. It’s hardly worth while talk- 
ing to a man like me. Yet for that very reason men 
have been known to take their own life.” 

“On the contrary, I think it is worth while talking to 
you.” 

He kept her in the comer of his eye. She had plunged 
her fingers in the loose hair at the side of her head and 
was stirring them thoughtfully. 

She seemed to be thinking out some scathing retort, 
but ended by only shrugging her shoulders slightly. 

“Shallow talk! I suppose one must pardon this 
weakness in you,” she said, putting a special accent on 
the last word. There was something anxious in her 
indulgent conclusion. 


249 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


Razumov noted the slightest shades in this conversa- 
tion which he had not expected, for which he was not 
prepared. That was it. “I was not prepared,” he said 
to himself. “It has taken me unawares.” It seemed 
to him that if he only could allow himself to pant openly 
like a dog for a time this oppression would pass away. 
“ I shall never be found prepared,” he thought with des- 
pair. He laughed a little, saying, as lightly as he could : 

“Thanks. I don’t ask for mercy.” Then, affecting 
a playful uneasiness: “But aren’t you afraid Peter 
Ivanovitch might suspect us of plotting something un- 
authorized together by the gate here?” 

“No, I am not afraid. You are quite safe from 
suspicions while you are with me, my dear young man.” 
The humorous gleam in her black eyes went out. “ Peter 
Ivanovitch trusts me,” she went on, quite austerely. 
“He takes my advice. I am his right hand, as it were, 
in certain most important things . . . That amuses you 
— what? Do you think I am boasting?” 

“God forbid. I was just only saying to myself that 
Peter Ivanovitch seems to have solved the woman ques- 
tion pretty completely.” 

Even as he spoke he reproached himself for his words, 
for his tone. All day long he had been saying the wrong 
things. It was folly, worse than folly. It was weak- 
ness; it was this disease of perversity overcoming his 
will. Was this the way to meet speeches which cer- 
tainly contained the promise of future confidences from 
that woman who apparently had a great store of secret 
knowledge and so much influence? Why give her this 
puzzling impression? But she did not seem inimical. 
There was no anger in her voice. It was strangely 
speculative. 

“One does not know what to think, Razumov. You 
must have bitten something bitter in your cradle.” 

Razumov gave her a sidelong glance. 

“H’m! Something bitter? That’s an explanation,” 
250 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


he muttered. “ Only it was much later. And don’t you 
think, Sophia Antonovna, that you and I come from 
the same cradle?” 

The woman whose name he had forced himself at last 
to pronounce (he had experienced a strong repugnance 
in letting it pass his lips), the woman revolutionist 
murmured, after a pause: 

“You mean — Russia?” 

He disdained even to nod. She seemed softened, her 
black eyes very still, as though she were pursuing the 
simile in her thoughts to all its tender associations. 
But suddenly she knitted her brows in a Mephistophelian 
frown. 

“Yes. Perhaps no wonder then. Yes. One lies 
there lapped up in evils, watched over by beings that 
are vrorse than ogres, ghouls, and vampires. They must 
be driven away, destroyed utterly. In regard of that 
task nothing else matters if men and women are de- 
termined and faithful. That’s how I came to feel in 
the end. The great thing is not to quarrel among our- 
selves about all sorts of conventional trifles. Remember 
that, Razumov.” 

Razumov was not listening. He had even lost the 
sense of being watched in a sort of heavy tranquillity. 
His uneasiness, his exasperation, his scorn were blunted 
at last by all these trying hours. It seemed to him that 
now they were blunted forever. “I am a match for 
them all,” he thought, with a conviction too firm to be 
exulting. The woman revolutionist had ceased speak- 
ing; he was not looking at her; there was no one passing 
along the road. He almost forgot that he was not alone. 
He heard her voice again, curt, businesslike, and yet be- 
tra3dng the hesitation which had been the real reason 
of her prolonged silence. 

“I say, Razumov!” 

Razumov, whose face was turned away from her, made 
a grimace like a man who hears a false note. 

251 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


“Tell me: is it true that on the very morning you 
actually attended the lectures at the University?” 

A.n appreciable fraction of a second elapsed before the 
real import of the question reached him like a bullet 
which strikes some time after the flash of the fired shot. 
Luckily his disengaged hand was ready to grip a bar of 
the gate. He held it with a terrible force, but his presence 
of mind was gone. He could make only a sort of gur- 
gling, grumpy sound. 

“ Come, Kirylo Sidorovitch !” she urged him. “ I know 
you are not a boastful man. That one must say for you. 
You are a silent man. Too silent, perhaps. You are 
feeding on some bitterness of your own. You are not an 
enthusiast. You are, perhaps, all the stronger for that. 
But you might tell me. One would like to understand 
you a little more. I was so immensely struck . . . 
Have you really done it?” 

He got his voice back. The shot had missed him. It 
had been fired at random, altogether, more like a signal 
for coming to close quarters. It was to be a plain 
struggle for self-preservation. And she was a dangerous 
adversary, too. But he was ready for battle; he was so 
ready that when he turned toward her not a muscle of 
his face moved. 

“Certainly,” he said, without animation, secretly 
strung up, but perfectly sure of himself. “Lectures — 
certainly. But what makes you ask?” 

It was she who was animated. 

“I had it in a letter, written by a young man in 
Petersburg; one of us, of course. You were seen — you 
were observed with your note-book, impassible, taking 
notes . . .” 

He enveloped her with his fixed stare. 

“What of that?” 

“I call such coolness superb — that's all. It is a proof 
of uncommon strength of character. The young man 
writes that nobody could have guessed from your face 

252 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


and manner the part you had played only some two 
hours before — the great, momentous, glorious part . . 

“Oh no. Nobody could have guessed,” assented 
Razumov, gravely, “because, don’t you see, nobody at 
that time . . 

“Yes, yes. But all the same you are a man of 
exceptional fortitude, it seems. You looked exactly 
as usual. It was remembered afterward with won- 
der . . .” 

“It cost me no effort,” Razumov declared, vdth the 
same staring gravity. 

“Then it’s almost more wonderful still,” she ex- 
claimed, and fell silent while Razumov asked himself 
whether he had not said there something utterly un- 
necessar)^ — or even worse. 

She raised her head eagerly. 

“Your intention was to stay in Russia? You had 
planned . . .” 

“No,” interrupted Razumov without haste. “I had 
made no plans of any sort.” 

“You just simply walked away?” she struck in. 

He bowed his head in slow assent. “Simply — yes.” 
He had gradually released his hold on the bar of the gate, 
as though he had acquired the conviction that no ran- 
dom shot could knock him over now. And suddenly he 
was inspired to add: “The snow was coming down very 
thick, you know.” 

She had a slight appreciative movement of the head, 
like an expert in such enterprises, very interested, ca- 
pable of taking every point professionally. Razumov 
remembered something he had heard. 

“I turned into a narrow side street, you understand,” 
he went on, negligently, and paused as if it were not 
worth talking about. Then he remembered another 
detail and dropped it before her, like a disdainful dole 
to her curiosity. 

“I felt inclined to lie down and go to sleep there.” 

253 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


She clicked her tongue at that symptom, very struck 
indeed. Then : 

“But the note-book! The amazing note-book, man! 
You don’t mean to say you had put it in your pocket 
beforehand!” she cried. 

Razumov gave a start. It might have been a sign of 
impatience. 

“ I went home. Straight home to my rooms,” he said, 
distinctly. 

“The coolness of the man! You dared?” 

“Why not? I assure you I was perfectly calm. Ha! 
Calmer than I am now, perhaps.” 

“ I like you much better as you are now than when you 
indulge that bitter vein of yours, Razumov. And no- 
body in the house saw you return — eh? That might 
have appeared queer.” 

“No one,” Razumov said, firmly. “Dvomik, land- 
lady, girl, all out of the way. I went up like a shadow. 
It was a murky morning. The stairs were dark. I 
glided up like a phantom. Fate? Luck? What do 
you think?” 

“ I just see it!” The eyes of the woman revolutionist 
snapped darkly. “Well — ^and then you considered . . .” 

Razumov had it all ready in his head. 

“ No. I looked at my watch, since you want to know. 
There was just time. I took that note-book and ran 
down the stairs on tiptoe. Have you ever listened to 
the pit-pat of a man running round and round the shaft 
of a deep staircase ? They have a gaslight at the bottom 
burning night and day. I suppose it’s gleaming down 
there now . . . The sound dies out — ^the flame winks ...” 

He noticed the vacillation of surprise passing over the 
steady curiosity of the black eyes fastened on his face 
as if the woman revolutionist received the sound of his 
voice into her pupils instead of her ears. He checked 
himself, passed his hand over his forehead, confused like 
a man who has been dreaming aloud. 

254 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


“Where could a student be running if not to his 
lectures in the morning? At night it’s another matter. 
I did not care if all the house had been there to look at 
me. But I don’t suppose there was any one. It’s best 
not to be seen or heard. Aha! The people that are 
neither seen nor heard are the lucky ones — in Russia. 
Don’t you admire my luck?” 

“Astonishing,” she said. “ If you have luck as well as 
determination then indeed you are likely to turn out an 
invaluable acquisition for the work in hand.” 

Her tone was earnest, and it seemed to Razumov that 
it was speculative, even as though she were already 
apportioning him, in her mind, his share of the work. 
Her eyes were cast down. He waited, not very alert 
now but with the grip of the ever-present danger giving 
him an air of attentive gravity. Who could have 
written about him in that letter from Petersburg? A 
fellow student surely — some imbecile victim of revolu- 
tionary propaganda, some foolish slave of foreign, sub- 
versive ideals. A long, famine-stricken, red-nosed 
figure presented itself to his mental search. That must 
have been the fellow! 

He smiled inwardly at the absolute wrong-headedness 
of the whole thing, the self-deception of a criminal 
idealist shattering his existence like a thunder-clap out 
of a clear sky and re-echoing among the wreckage in the 
false assumptions of those other fools. Fancy that 
hungry and piteous imbecile furnishing to the curiosity 
of the revolutionist refugees this utterly fantastic detail! 
He appreciated it as by no means constituting a danger. 
On the contrary. As things stood it was for his ad- 
vantage rather, a piece of sinister luck which had only 
to be accepted with proper caution. 

“And yet, Razumov,” he heard the musing voice of 
the woman, “you have not the face of a lucky man.” 
She raised her eyes with renewed interest. “And so 
that was the way of it. After doing your work you 

255 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


simply walked off and made for your rooms. That sort 
of thing succeeds sometimes. I suppose it was agreed 
beforehand that, once the business over, each of you 
would go his own way?” 

Razumov preserved the seriousness of his expression 
and the deliberate if cautious manner of speaking. 

“Was not that the best thing to do?” he asked, in a 
dispassionate tone. “And anyway,” he added, after 
waiting a moment, “we did not give much thought to 
what would come after. We never discussed formally 
any line of conduct. It was understood, I think.” 

She approved his statement with slight nods. 

“You, of course, wished to remain in Russia?” 

“In St. Petersburg itself,” emphasized Razumov. 
“It was the only safe course for me. And, moreover, I 
had nowhere else to go.” 

“Yes! Yes! I know. Clearly. And the other — 
this -wonderful Haldin appearing only to be regretted — 
you don’t know what he intended?” 

Razumov had foreseen that such a question would 
certainly come to meet him sooner or later. He raised 
his hands a little and let them fall helplessly by his side — 
nothing more. 

It was the white-haired woman conspirator who was 
the first to break the silence. 

“Very curious,” she pronounced, slowly. “And you 
did not think, Kirylo Sidorovitch, that he might, per- 
haps, wish to get in touch with you again?” 

Razumov discovered that he could not suppress the 
trembling of his lips. But he thought that he owed it 
to himself to speak. A negative sign would not do 
again. Speak he must, if only to get to the bottom of 
what that Petersburg letter might have contained. 

“ I stayed at home next day,” he said, bending down 
a little and plunging his glance into the black eyes of the 
woman so that she should not observe the trembling of 
his lips. “Yes, I stayed at home. As my actions are 

256 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


remembered and written about then, perhaps, you are 
aware that I was not seen at the lectures next day. Eh ? 
You didn’t know? Well, I stopped at home— the live- 
long day.” 

As if moved by his agitated tone, she murmured a 
sympathetic ” I see! It must have been trying enough.” 

“You seem to understand one’s feelings,” said Raz- 
umov, steadily. “It was trying. It was horrible: it 
was an atrocious day. It was not the last.” 

“ Yes, I understand. Afterward when you heard they 
had got him. Don’t I know how one feels after losing a 
comrade in the good fight. One’s ashamed of being left. 
And I can remember so many. Never mind. They 
shall be avenged before long. And what is death ? At 
any rate it is not a shameful thing like some kinds of 
life.” 

Razumov felt something stir in his breast, a sort of 
feeble and unpleasant tremor. 

“Some kinds of life,” he repeated, looking at her 
searchingly. 

“The subservient, submissive life. Life! No! Veg- 
etation on the filthy heap of iniquity, which the world is. 
Life, Razumov, not to be vile, must be a revolt — a pitiless 
protest — all the time.” 

She calmed down, the gleam of suffused tears in her 
eyes dried out instantly by the heat of her passion, and 
it was in her capable businesslike manner that she went 
on. 

“You understand me, Razumov. You are not an 
enthusiast, but there is an immense force of revolt in you. 
I felt it from the first, directly I set my eyes on you — 
you remember — ^in Zurich. Oh! You are full of bitter 
revolt. That is good. Indignation flags sometimes, 
revenge itself may become a weariness, but that uncom- 
promising sense of necessity and justice which armed 
your and Haldin’s hands to strike down that fanatical 
brute ... for it was that — ^nothing but that! I have 
257 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


been thinking it out. It could have been nothing else 
but that.” 

Razumov made a slight bow, the irony of which was 
concealed by an almost sinister immobility of feature. 

“I can’t speak for the dead. As for myself, I can 
assure you that my conduct was dictated by necessity 
and by the sense of — well — retributive justice.” 

“Good, that,” he said to himself, while her eyes rested 
upon him, black and impenetrable like the mental 
caverns where revolutionary thought should sit plotting 
the violent way of its dream of changes. As if anything 
could be changed ! In this world of men nothing can be 
changed — neither happiness nor misery. They can only 
be displaced at the cost of corrupted consciences and 
broken lives — a futile game for arrogant philosophers 
and sanguinary triflers. Those thoughts darted through 
Razumov’s head while he stood facing the old revolu- 
tionary hand, the respected, trusted, and influential 
Sophia Antonovna, whose word had such a weight in the 
“active” section of every party. She was much more 
representative than the great Peter Ivanovitch. Stripped 
of rhetoric, mysticism, and theories, she was the true 
spirit of destructive revolution. And she was the 
personal adversary he had to meet. It gave him a feel- 
ing of hardly triumphant pleasure to deceive her out of 
her own mouth. The epigrammatic saying that speech 
has been given to us for the purpose of concealing our 
thoughts came into his mind. Of that cynical theory 
this was a very subtle and a very scornful application, 
flouting, in its own words, the very spirit of ruthless 
revolution, embodied in that woman, with her white 
hair and black eyebrows, like slightly sinuous lines of 
India ink, traced upward from the two heavy perpen- 
dicular folds of a thoughtful frown. 

“That’s it. Retributive. No pity,” was the con- 
clusion of her silence. And, this once broken, she went 
on impulsively in short, vibrating sentences. 

258 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


“Listen to me, Razumov! . . Her father was a 
clever but unlucky artisan. No joy had lighted up his 
laborious days. He died at fifty, all the years of his life 
he had panted under the thumb of masters whose rapac- 
ity exacted from him the price of the water, of the salt, 
of the very air he breathed : taxed the sweat of his brow 
and claimed the blood of his sons. No protection, no 
guidance! What had society to say to him? Be sub- 
missive and be honest. If you rebel, I shall kill you. If 
you steal, I shall imprison you. But if you suffer, I have 
nothing for you — nothing except, perhaps, a beggarly 
dole of bread — but no consolation for your trouble, no 
respect for your manhood, no pity for the sorrows of 
your miserable life. 

And so he labored, he suffered, and he died. He died 
in the hospital. Standing by the common grave, she 
thought of his tormented life — she saw it whole. She 
reckoned the simple joys of life, the birthright of the 
humblest, of which his gentle heart had been robbed bv 
the crime of a society which nothing can absolve. 

“Yes, Razumov,” she went on in an impressive, low- 
ered voice, “it was like a lurid light in which I stood, 
still almost a child, and cursed not the toil, not the 
misery which had been his lot, but the great social in- 
iquity of the system resting on unrequited toil and unpit- 
ied sufferings. From that moment I was a revolutionist.” 

Razumov, trying to raise himself above the dangerous 
weaknesses of contempt or compassion, had preserved an 
impassive countenance. She, too, stood quiet before 
him, and, with an unexpected touch of mere bitterness, 
the first he could notice since he had come in contact 
with the woman, she went on : 

“As I could not go to the church where the priests of 
the system exhorted such unconsidered vermin as I to 
resignation, I went to the secret societies as soon as I 
knew how to find my way. I was sixteen years old — no 
more, Razumov! And — look at my white hair.” 

259 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


In these last words there was neither pride nor sad- 
ness. The bitterness, too, was gone. 

“And long! There is a lot of it. I had always mag- 
nificent hair even as a chit of a girl. Only at that time 
we were cutting it short and thinking that there was the 
first step toward crushing the social infamy. Crush the 
infamy! A fine watchword! I would placard it on the 
walls of prisons and palaces, carve it on hard rocks, hang 
it out in letters of fire on that empty sky for a sign of 
hope and terror — a portent of the end. ...” 

“You are eloquent, Sophia Antonovna,” Razumov 
interrupted, suddenly. “Only so far you seem to have 
been writing it in water. . . .” 

She was checked, but not offended. “Who knows? 
Very soon it may become a fact written all over that 
great land of ours,” she hinted, meaningly. “And then 
one would have lived long enough. White hair won’t 
matter.” 

Razumov looked at her white hair ; and this mark of so 
many uneasy years seemed nothing but a testimony to 
the invincible vigor of revolt. It threw out into an 
astonishing relief the unwrinkled face, the brilliant, 
black glance, the upright compact figure, the simple, 
brisk self-possession of the mature personality as 
though in her revolutionary pilgrimage she had dis- 
covered the secret, not of everlasting youth, but of ever- 
lasting endurance. 

“How un- Russian she looks!” thought Razumov. 
Her mother might have been a Jewess or an Armenian 
or — devil knows vrhat. He reflected that a revolutionist 
is seldom true to the settled type. All revolt is the ex- 
pression of strong individualism — ran his thought, 
vaguely. One can tell them a mile off in any society, in 
any surroundings. It was astonishing that the police . . . 

“We shall hot meet again very soon, I think,” she was 
saying. “I am leaving to-morrow.” 

“For Zurich?” Razumov asked, casually, but feeling 
260 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


relieved, not from any distinct apprehension, but rather 
from a feeling of stress as if after a wrestling-match. 
That was over! 

“ Yes, Zurich — and farther on, perhaps, much farther. 
Another journey. When I think of all my journeys! 
The last must come some day. Never mind, Razumov. 
We had to have a good long talk. I am glad we had it, 
like this, here, unexpectedly. But I would have cer- 
tainly tried to see you if we had not met. Peter Ivano- 
vitch knows where you live? Yes. I meant to have 
asked him — ^but it’s better like this. You see, we ex- 
pect two more men; and I had much rather wait here 
with you than up there at the house with . . .” 

Having cast a glance beyond the gate, she interrupted 
herself. “Here they are,’’ she said, rapidly. “Well, 
Kirylo Sidorovitch, we shall have to say good-by.” 


IV 


I N his incertitude of the ground on which he stood, 
Razumov felt perturbed. Turning his head quickly 
he saw two men on the opposite side of the road. Seeing 
themselves noticed by Sophia Antonovna, they crossed 
over at once and passed, one after another, through the 
little gate by the side of the empty lodge. They looked 
hard at the stranger, but without mistrust, the crimson 
blouse being a flaring safety signal. The first, great, 
white, hairless face, double chin, prominent stomach, 
which he seemed to carry forward consciously within 
a strongly distended overcoat, only nodded and averted 
his eyes peevishly; his companion, lean, flushed cheek- 
bones, a military, red mustache below a sharp, salient 
nose, approached at once Sophia Antonovna, greeting 
her warmly. His voice was very strong, but inarticu- 
late. It sounded like a deep buzzing. The woman revo- 
lutionist was quietly cordial. 

“This is Razumov,” she announced, in a clear voice. 
The lean new-comer made an eager half -turn. “He 
will want to embrace me,” thought our young man, with 
a deep recoil of all his being, while his limbs seemed too 
heavy to move. But it was a groundless alarm. He 
had to do now with a generation of conspirators which 
did not kiss each other on both cheeks, and, raising 
an arm that felt like lead, he dropped his hand into 
a largely outstretched palm, fleshless and hot as if 
dried up by fever, giving a bony pressure, expressive, 
seeming to say, “Between us there’s no need of 
words.” 


262 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


The man had clear, wide-open eyes. Razumov fancied 
he could see a smile behind their sadness. 

“This is Razumov,” Sophia Antonovna repeated 
loudly for the benefit of the fat man, who, at some dis- 
tance, displayed the profile of his stomach. 

No one moved. Ever3rthing — sounds, attitudes, 
movements, and immobility — seemed to be part of an 
experiment, whose result was a thin voice piping with 
comic peevishness. 

“Oh yes! Razumov. We have been hearing of 
nothing but Mr. Razumov for months. For my part, 
I confess I would rather have seen Haldin on this spot 
instead of Mr. Razumov.” 

The squeaky stress put on the name “Razumov — 
Mr. Razumov” pierced the ear ridiculously like the 
falsetto of a circus clown beginning an elaborate joke. 
Astonishment was Razumov’s first response, followed 
by a sudden indignation. 

“What’s the meaning of this?” he asked, in a stern 
tone. 

“Tut. Silliness. He’s always like that.” Sophia 
Antonovna was obviously vexed. But she dropped the 
information “Necator” from her lips just loud enough 
to be heard by Razumov. The abrupt squeaks of the 
fat man seemed to proceed from that thing like a bal- 
loon he carried under his overcoat. The stolidity of 
his attitude, the big feet, the lifeless, hanging hands, the 
enormous bloodless cheek, the thin wisps of hair strag- 
gling down the fat nape of the neck, fascinated Razumov 
into a stare on the verge of horror and laughter. 

Nikita, surnamed Necator, with a sinister aptness of 
alliteration! Razumov had heard of him. He had 
heard so much since crossing the frontier of these celebri- 
ties of the militant revolution; the legends, the stories, 
the authentic chronicle, which now and then peeps out 
before a half-incredulous world. Razumov had heard 
of him. He was supposed to have killed more gendarmes 
18 263 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


and police agents than any revolutionist living. He 
had been intrusted with executions. The paper with 
the letters N. N., the very pseudonym of murder, found 
pinned on the stabbed breast of a certain notorious spy 
(this picturesque detail of a sensational murder case had 
got into the newspapers), was the mark of his handiwork. 
“By order of the Committee. N. N.” A corner of the 
curtain lifted to strike the imagination of the gaping 
world. He was said to have been innumerable times in 
and out of Russia, the Necator of bureaucrats, of provin- 
cial governors, of obscure informers. He lived between 
whiles, Razumov had heard, on the shores of the Lake 
of Como with a charming wife, devoted to the cause, and 
two young children. But how could that creature, so 
grotesque as to set town dogs barking at its mere 
sight, go about on those deadly errands and slip through 
the meshes of the police! 

“ What now, what now?” the voice squeaked. “I am 
only sincere. It’s not denied that the other was the 
leading spirit. Well, it would have been better if he had 
been the one spared to us. More useful. I am not 
a sentimentalist. Say what I think . . . only nat- 
ural.” 

Squeak, squeak, squeak, without a gesture, without a 
stir — the horrible squeakly burlesque of professional 
jealousy — this man of a sinister alliterative nickname, 
this executioner of revolutionary verdicts, the terrify- 
ing “ N.N.” exasperated like a fashionable tenor by the 
attention attracted to the performance of an obscure 
amateur. Sophia Antonovna shrugged her shoulders. 
The comrade with the martial red mustache hurried 
toward Razumov full of conciliatory intentions in his 
strong, buzzing voice. 

“Devil take it! And in this place, too, in the public 
street, so to speak. But you can see yourself how it is. 
One of his fantastic sallies. Absolutely of no conse- 
quence.” 


264 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


“Pray don’t concern yourself,” cried Razumov, going 
off into a long fit of laughter. “Don’t mention it.” 

The other — his hectic flush crimson like a pair of 
bums on his cheek-bones — stared for a moment and 
burst out laughing, too. Razumov, whose hilarity died 
out all at once, made a step forward. 

“Enough of this,” he began, in a clear, incisive voice, 
though he had discovered that he could hardly control 
the trembling of his legs. “ I will have no more of it. I 
shall not permit any one ... I can see very well what 
you are at with those allusions. . . . Inquire, investigate ! 
I defy you, but I will not be played with.” 

He had spoken such words before. He had been 
driven to cry them out in the face of other suspicions. 
It was an infernal cycle bringing round that protest like 
a fatal necessity of his existence. But it was no use. 
He would be always played with. Luckily, life does not 
last forever. 

“I won’t have it!” he shouted, striking his fist into the 
palm of his other hand. 

“Kirylo Sidorovitch — what has come to you?” The 
woman revolutionist interfered with authority. They 
were all looking at Razumov now ; the slayer of spies and 
gendarmes had turned about, presenting his enormous 
stomach in full, like a shield. 

“Don’t shout. There are people passing.” Sophia 
Antonovna was apprehensive of another outburst. A 
steam-launch from Monrepos had come to the landing- 
stage opposite the gate, its hoarse whistle and the 
churning noise alongside all unnoticed, had landed a 
small bunch of local passengers, who were dispersing 
their several ways. Only a specimen of early tourist in 
knickerbockers, conspicuous by a brand-new yellow- 
leather glass-case, hung about for a moment, scenting 
something unusual about these four people within the 
rusty iron gates of what looked the grounds run wild of 
an unoccupied private house. Ah I if he had only known 
265 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


what the chance of commonplace traveling had suddenly 
put in his way! But he was a well-bred person; he 
averted his gaze and moved off with short steps along the 
avenue, on the watch for a tram-car. 

A gesture from Sophia Antonovna — “Leave him to 
me ’ ’ — had sent the two men away — ^the buzzing of the in- 
articulate voice growing fainter and fainter, and the thin 
pipe of “What now, what’s the matter.?’’ reduced to the 
proportions of a squeaking toy by the distance. They 
had left him to her. So many things could be left safely 
to the experience of Sophia Antonovna. And at once her 
black eyes turned to Razumov, her mind tried to get at 
the heart of that outburst. It had some meaning. No 
one is born an active revolutionist. The change comes 
disturbingly with the force of a sudden vocation, bringing 
in its train agonizing doubts, assertive violences, an un- 
stable state of the soul, till the final appeasement of the 
convert in the perfect fierceness of conviction. She had 
seen — often had only divined — scores of these young 
men and young women going through an emotional 
crisis. This young man looked like a moody egotist. 
And, besides, it was a special — a unique case. There 
was something cautious in her warning speech. 

“Take care, Razumov, my good friend. If you carry 
on like this you will go mad. You are angry with every- 
body and bitter with yourself and on the lookout for 
something to torment yourself with.” 

“It’s intolerable!” Razumov could only speak in 
gasps. “You must admit that I can have no illusions 
on the attitude which ... it isn’t clear ... or rather 
. . . only too clear.” 

He made a gesture of despair. It was not his cour- 
age that failed him. The choking fumes of falsehood 
had taken him by the throat— the thought of being con- 
demned to struggle on and on in that tainted atmos- 
phere without the hope of ever renewing his strength 
by a breath of fresh air. 


266 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


“ A glass of cold water is what you want.” Sophia An- 
tonovna glanced up the grounds at the house and shook 
her head, then out of the gate at the brimful placidity of 
the lake. With a half-comical shrug of the shoulders 
she gave the remedy up in the face of that abundance. 

“It is you, my dear soul, who are flinging yourself at 
something which does not exist. What is it? Self- 
reproach — or what? It’s absurd. You couldn’t have 
gone and given yourself up because your comrade was 
taken.” 

She spoke reasonably, at some length, too. Razumov 
had nothing to complain of in his reception. Every new- 
comer was discussed more or less. Everybody had to be 
thoroughly understood before being accepted. No one 
that she could remember had been shovm from the first 
so much confidence. Soon, very soon, perhaps sooner 
than he expected, he would be given an opportunity of 
showing his devotion to the sacred task of crushing the 
infamy. 

Razumov, listening quietly, thought: “ It may be that 
she is trying to lull my suspicions to sleep. On the other 
hand, it’s obvious that most of them are fools.” He 
moved aside a couple of paces and, folding his arms on 
his breast, leaned back against the stone pillar of the 
gate. 

“As to what remains obscure in the fate of that poor 
Haldin,” Sophia Antonovna dropped into a slowness 
of utterance which was to Razumov like the falling of 
molten lead drop by drop. “As to that — though no one 
ever hinted that either from fear or neglect your con- 
duct has not been what it should have been — well, I have 
a bit of intelligence ...” 

Razumov could not prevent himself from raising his 
head, and Sophia Antonovna nodded slightly. 

“I have. You remember that letter from Peters- 
burg?” 

“The letter? Perfectly. Some busybody has been 
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UNDER WESTERN EYES 


reporting my conduct on a certain day. It’s rather 
sickening. I suppose our police are greatly edified when 
they open these interesting and — and — superfluous let- 
ters.” 

“Oh, dear, no! The police do not get hold of our 
letters as easily as you imagine. The letter in ques- 
tion did not leave Petersburg till the ice broke up. It 
went by the first English steamer which left the Neva 
this spring. They have a fireman on board — one of us 
in fact. It has reached me from Hull. . . 

She paused as if she were surprised at the sullen fixity 
of Razumov’s gaze, but went on at once and much 
faster. 

“We have some of our people there who . . . but 
never mind. The writer of the letter relates an incident 
which he thinks may possibly be connected with Haldin’s 
arrest. I was just going to tell you when those two men 
came along.” 

“That also was an incident,” muttered Razumov, “of 
a very charming kind — for me.” 

“ Leave off that,” cried Sophia Antonovna. “ Nobody 
cares for Nikita’s barking. There’s no malice in him. 
Listen to what I have to say. You may be able to throw 
a light. There was in Petersburg a sort of town peasant 
— a man who owned horses. He came to town years ago 
to work for some relation as a driver and ended by own- 
ing a cab or two.” 

She might well have spared herself the slight effort of 
the gesture. “Wait!” Razumov did not mean to 
speak ; he could not have interrupted her now, not to 
save his life. The contraction of his facial muscles had 
been involuntary, a mere surface stir, leaving him sul- 
lenly attentive as before. 

“He was not a quite ordinary man of his class — it 
seems,” she went on. “The people of the house — ^my 
informant talked with many of them — you know, one 
of those enormous houses of shame and misery. . . .” 

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UNDER WESTERN EYES 


Sophia Antonovna need not have enlarged on the char- 
acter of the house. Razumov saw clearly, towering at 
her back, a dark mass of masonry veiled in snowflakes, 
with the long row of windows of the eating-shop shining 
greasily very near the ground. The ghost of that night 
pursued him. He stood up to it with rage and with 
weariness. 

“Did the late Haldin ever by chance speak to you of 
that house?” Sophia Antonovna was anxious to know. 

“Yes.” Razumov, making that answer, wondered 
whether he were falling into a trap. It was so humiliat- 
ing to lie to these people that he probably could not have 
said no. “He mentioned to me once,” he added, as if 
making an effort of memory, “a house of that sort. He 
used to visit some workmen there.” 

“Exactly.” 

Sophia Antonovna triumphed. Her correspondent 
had discovered that fact quite accidentally from the talk 
of the people of the house, having made friends with a 
workman who occupied a room there. They described 
Haldin’s appearance perfectly. He brought comforting 
words of hope into their misery. He came irregularly, 
but he came very often, and — her correspondent wrote 
■ — sometimes he spent a night in the house, sleeping, they 
thought, in a stable which opened upon the inner yard. 

“Note that, Razumov! In a stable.” 

Razumov had listened with a sort of ferocious but 
amused acquiescence. 

“Yes. In the straw. It was probably the cleanest 
spot in the whole house.” 

“No doubt,” assented the woman with that deep 
frown which seemed to draw closer together her black 
eyes in a sinister fashion. No four-footed beast could 
stand the filth and wretchedness so many human beings 
were condemned to suffer from in Russia. The point of 
this discovery was that it proved Haldin to have been 
familiar with that horse-owning peasant — a reckless, in- 
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UNDER WESTERN EYES 


dependent, free-living fellow not much liked by the other 
inhabitants of the house. He was believed to have been 
the associate of a band of house-breakers. Some of these 
got captured. Not while he was driving them, however, 
but still there was a suspicion against the fellow of having 
given a hint to the police and . . . 

The woman revolutionist checked herself suddenly. 

“ And you ? Have you ever heard your friend refer to 
a certain Ziemianitch ?” 

Razumov was ready for the name. He had been look- 
ing out for the question. “When it comes I shall own 
up,” he had said to himself. But he took his time. 

“To be sure!” he began, slowly. “ Ziemianitch, a 
peasant owning a team of horses. Yes. On one occa- 
sion. Ziemianitch! Certainly! Ziemianitch of the 
horses. . . . How could it have slipped my memory like 
this? One of the last conversations we had together.” 

“That means” — Sophia Antonovna looked very grave 
— “that means, Razumov, it was very shortly before — 
eh?” 

“Before what?” shouted Razumov, advancing at the 
woman, who looked astonished but stood her ground. 
“Before — Oh! Of course it was before! How could 
it have been after? Only a few hours before.” 

“And favorably?” 

“With enthusiasm! The horses of Ziemianitch! The 
free soul of Ziemianitch.” 

Razumov took a savage delight in the loud utterance 
of that name which had never before crossed his lips 
audibly. He fixed his blazing eyes on the woman till at 
last her fascinated expression recalled him to himself. 

“The late Haldin,” he said, holding himself in with 
downcast eyes, “was inclined to take sudden fancies to 
people, on — ^what shall I say — insufficient grounds.” 

“There!” Sophia Antonovna clapped her hands. 
“That, to my mind, settles it. The suspicions of my 
correspondent were aroused. ...” 

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UNDER WESTERN EYES 


“Aha! Your correspondent,” Razumov said, in an 
almost openly mocking tone. “ What suspicions ? How 
aroused ? By this Ziemianitch ? Probably some drunken, 
gabbling, plausible. . . .” 

“You talk as if you had known him.” 

Razumov looked up. 

“No. But I knew Haldin.” 

Sophia Antonovna nodded gravely. 

“ I see. Every word you say confirms to my mind the 
suspicion communicated to me in that very interesting 
letter. This Ziemianitch was found one morning hang- 
ing from a hook in the stable — dead.” 

Razumov felt a profound trouble. It was visible, be- 
cause Sophia Antonovna was moved to observe, viva- 
ciously : 

“Aha! You begin to see.” 

He saw it clearly enough — in the light of a lantern 
casting spokes of shadow in a cellar-like stable, the body 
in a sheepskin coat and long boots hanging against the 
wall. A pointed hood, with the ends wound about up 
to the eyes, hid the face. “But that does not concern 
me,” he reflected. “It does not affect my position at 
all. He never knew who had thrashed him. He could 
not have known.” Razumov felt sorry for the old lover 
of the bottle and women. 

“Yes. Some of them end like that,” he muttered. 
“What is your idea, Sophia Antonovna?” 

It was the idea of her correspondent. Sophia Anto- 
novna had adopted it fully. She stated it in one word — 
“Remorse.” Razumov opened his eyes very wide at 
that. Sophia Antonovna’s informant, by listening to the 
talk of the house, by putting this and that together, had 
managed to come very near to the truth of Haldin’s 
relation to Ziemianitch. 

“ It is I who can tell you what you were not certain of 
— that your friend had some plan for saving himself 
afterward, for getting out of Petersburg, at any rate. 

271 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


Perhaps that and no more, trusting to luck for the rest. 
And that fellow's horses were part of the plan.” 

“They have actually got at the truth,” Razumov 
marveled to himself while he nodded judicially. “Yes, 
that’s possible, very possible.” But the woman revolu- 
tionist was very positive that it was so. First of all 
a conversation about horses between Haldin and 
Ziemianitch had been partly overheard. Then there 
were the suspicions of the people in the house when 
their “young gentleman” (they did not know Haldin 
by his name) ceased to call at the house. Some of them 
used to charge Ziemianitch with knowing something of 
this absence. He denied it with exasperation; but the 
fact was that ever since Haldin’s disappearance he was 
not himself, growing moody and thin. Finally, during a 
quarrel with some woman (to whom he was making up) 
in which most of the inmates of the house took part, 
apparently, he was openly abused by his chief enemy, an 
athletic peddler, for an informer, and for having driven 
“our young gentleman to Siberia, the same as you did 
those young fellows who broke into houses.” In con- 
sequence of this, there was a fight, and Ziemianitch got 
flung down a flight of stairs. Thereupon he drank and 
moped for a week and then hanged himself. 

Sophia Antonovna drew her conclusions from the tale. 
She charged Ziemianitch either with drunken indiscre- 
tion as to a driving job on a certain date, overheard 
by some spy in some low grog-shop — perhaps in the 
very eating-shop on the ground floor of the house — or, 
maybe, a downright denunciation — then remorse. A 
man like that would be capable of anything. People 
said he was a flighty old chap. And if he had been 
once before mixed up with the police — as seemed cer- 
tain, though he always denied it — in connection with 
these thieves, he would be sure to be acquainted with 
some police underlings, always on the lookout for some- 
thing to report. Possibly at first his tale was not 
272 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


made anything of till the day that scoundrel De P 

got his deserts. Ah! But then every bit and scrap of 
hint and information would be acted on, and fatally 
they were bound to get Haldin. 

Sophia Antonovna spread out her hands — “Fatally.” 

Fatality — chance! Razumov meditated in silent as- 
tonishment upon the queer verisimilitude of these in- 
ferences. They were obviously to his advantage. 

“It is right now to make this conclusive evidence 
known generally.” Sophia Antonovna was very calm 
and deliberate again. She had received the letter three 
days ago, but did not write at once to Peter Ivanovitch. 
She knew then that she would have the opportunity, 
presently of meeting several men of action assembled for 
an important purpose. 

“I thought it would be more effective if I could 
show the letter itself at large. I have it in my pocket 
now. You understand how pleased I was to come upon 
you.” 

Razumov was saying to himself: “She won’t offer to 
show the letter to me. Not likely. Has she told me 
everything that correspondent of hers has found out?” 
... He would have liked to see the letter, but he felt he 
must not ask. 

“Tell me, please, was this an investigation ordered, as 
it were?” 

“No, no,” she protested. “There you are again with 
your sensitiveness. It makes you stupid. Don’t you 
see there was no starting-point for an investigation, even 
if any one had thought of it. A perfect blank! That’s 
exactly what some people were pointing out as the reason 
for receiving you cautiously. It was all perfectly acci- 
dental, arising from my informant striking an acquaint- 
ance with an intelligent skin -dresser lodging in that 
particular slum-house. A wonderful coincidence!” 

“A pious person,” suggested Razumov, with a pale 
smile, “would say that the hand of God has done it all.” 

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UNDER WESTERN EYES 


“My poor father would have said that.” Sophia An- 
tonovna did not smile. She dropped her eyes. “Not 
that his God ever helped him. It’s a long time since 
God has done anything for the people. Anyway, it’s 
done.” 

“All this would be quite final,” said Razumov, with 
every appearance of reflective impartiality, “if there was 
any certitude that the ‘our young gentleman’ of these 
people was Victor Haldin. Have we got that?” 

“Yes. There’s no mistake. My correspondent was 
as familiar with Haldin ’s personal appearance as with 
your own,” the woman afiirmed, decisively. 

“ It’s the red-nosed fellow beyond a doubt,” Razumov 
said to himself with re-awakened uneasiness. Had his 
own visit to that accursed house passed unnoticed? It 
was barely possible. Yet it was hardly probable. It 
was just the right sort of food for the popular gossip that 
gaunt busybody had been picking up. But the letter 
did not seem to contain any allusion to that. Unless 
she had suppressed it. And if so — why? If it had 
really escaped the prying of that hunger-stricken demo- 
crat with a confounded genius for recognizing people 
from description, it could be only for a time. He would 
come upon it presently and hasten to write another 
letter — ^and then! 

For all the envenomed recklessness of his temper fed 
on hate and disdain, Razumov shuddered inwardly. It 
guarded him from common fear, but it could not defend 
him from disgust at being dealt with in any way by these 
people. It was a sort of superstitious dread. Now, 
since his position had been made more secure by their 
own folly at the cost of Ziemianitch, he felt the need of 
perfect safety, with its freedom from direct lying, with 
its power of moving among them silent, unquestioning, 
listening, impenetrable, like the very fate of their crimes 
and their folly. Was this advantage his already? Or 
not yet ? Or never would be ? 

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UNDER WESTERN EYES 


“Well, Sophia Antonovna” — his air of reluctant con- 
cession was genuine in so far that he was really loath to 
part with her without testing her sincerity by a question 
it was impossible to bring about in any way — “well, 
Sophia Antonovna, if that is so, then . . 

“The creature has done justice to himself,” the woman 
observed, as if thinking aloud. 

“What? Ah, yes! Remorse,” Razumov muttered, 
with equivocal contempt. 

“Don’t be harsh, Kirylo Sidorovitch, if you have lost a 
friend.” There was no hint of softness in her tone, only 
the black glitter of her eyes seemed detached for an in- 
stant from vengeful visions. “He was a man of the 
people. The simple Russian soul is never wholly im- 
penitent. It’s something to know that.” 

“Consoling?” insinuated Razumov, in a tone of in- 
quiry. 

“Don’t rail,” she checked him, sharply. “Remem- 
ber, Razumov, that women, children, and revolutionists 
hate irony, which is the negation of all saving instincts, 
of all faith, of all devotion, of all action. Don’t rail! 
Don’t. ... I don’t know how it is, but there are moments 
when you are abhorrent to me. . . .” 

She averted her face. A languid silence, as if all the 
electricity of the situation had been discharged in this 
flash of passion, lasted for some time. Razumov had 
not flinched. Suddenly she laid the tips of her fingers 
on his sleeve. 

“Don’t mind.” 

“ I don’t mind,” he said, very quietly. 

He was proud to feel that she could read nothing on 
his face. He was really mollified, relieved, if only for a 
moment, from an obscure oppression. And suddenly he 
asked himself: “Why the devil did I go to that house? 
It was an imbecile thing to do.” 

A profound disgust came over him. Sophia Antonovna 
lingered, talking in a friendly manner with an evident 

275 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


conciliatory intention. And it was still about the 
famous letter, referring to various minute details given 
by her informant, who had never seen Ziemianitch. 
The “victim of remorse” had been buried several weeks 
before her correspondent began frequenting the house. 
It — the house — contained very good revolutionary ma- 
terial. The spirit of the heroic Haldin had passed 
through these dens of black wretchedness with a promise 
of universal redemption from all the miseries that oppress 
mankind. Razumov listened without hearing, gnawed 
by the new-born desire of safety with its dependence 
from that degrading method of direct lying which at 
times he found it almost impossible to practise. 

No. The point he wanted to hear about could never 
come into this conversation. There was no way of 
bringing it forward. He regretted not having composed 
a perfect story for use abroad, in which his fatal connec- 
tion with the house might have been owned up to. But 
when he left Russia he did not know that Ziemianitch 
had hanged himself. And, anyway, who could have fore- 
seen this woman’s “informant ” stumbling upon that par- 
ticular slum, of all the slums awaiting destruction in the 
purifying flame of social revolution? Who could have 
foreseen ? Nobody! “ It’s a perfectly diabolic surprise,” 
thought Razumov, calm-faced in his attitude of inscru- 
table superiority, nodding assent to Sophia Antonovna’s 
remarks upon the psychology of the “people.” “ Oh yes 
— certainly,” rather coldly, but with a nervous longing 
in his Angers to tear some sort of confession out of her 
throat. 

Then, at the very last, on the point of separating, the 
feeling of relaxed tension already upon him, he heard 
Sophia Antonovna allude to the subject of his uneasiness. 
How it came about he could only guess, his mind being 
absent at the moment, but it must have sprung from 
Sophia Antonovna’s complaint about the illogical absurd- 
ity of the people. For instance — that Ziemianitch was 
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UNDER WESTERN EYES 


looked upon as notoriously irreligious, and yet in the last 
weeks of his life he suffered from the notion that he had 
been beaten by the devil. 

“The devil,” repeated Razumov, as though he had not 
heard aright. 

“The actual devil. The devil in person. You may 
well look astonished, Kirylo Sidorovitch. Early on the 
very night poor Haldin was taken, a complete stranger 
turned up and gave Ziemianitch a most fearful thrashing 
while he was lying dead drunk in the stable. The 
wretched creature’s body was one mass of bruises. He 
showed it to the people in the house.” 

“ But you, Sophia Antonovna — you don’t believe in the 
actual devil?” 

“Do you?” retorted the woman, curtly. “Not but 
that there are plenty of men worse than devils to make 
a hell of this earth,” she muttered to herself. 

Razumov watched her, vigorous and white-haired, 
with the deep fold between her thin eyebrows and her 
black glance turned idly away. It was obvious that 
she did not make much of the story — ^unless, indeed, 
this was the perfection of duplicity. “A dark young 
man,” she explained further. “Never seen there before, 
never seen afterward. Why are you smiling, Raz- 
umov?” 

“At the devil being still young after all these ages,” 
he answered, composedly. “But who was able to de^ 
scribe him since the victim, you say, was dead drunk at 
the time?” 

“Oh! The eating-house keeper has described him. 
An overbearing, swarthy young man in a student’s 
cloak, who came rushing in, demanded Ziemianitch, beat 
him furiously, and rushed away without a word, leaving 
the eating-house keeper paralyzed with astonishment.” 

“Does he, too, believe it was the devil?” 

“ That I can’t say. I am told he’s very reserved on the 
matter. Those sellers of spirits are great scoundrels 
277 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


generally. I should think he knows more of it than 
anybody.” 

“ We — and you, Sophia Antonovna — what’s your the- 
ory?” asked Razumov, in a tone of great interest — 
‘‘yours and your informant’s who is on the spot?” 

‘‘I agree with him. Some police hound in disguise. 
Who else would beat a helpless man so unmercifully? 
As for the rest, if they were out that day on every trail 
old and new, it is probable enough that they might have 
thought it just as well to have Ziemianitch at hand for 
more information, or for identification, or what not. 
Some scoundrelly detective was sent to fetch him along, 
and, being vexed at finding him so drunk, broke a stable- 
fork over his ribs. Later on, after they had the big 
game safe in the net, they troubled their heads no more 
about that peasant.” 

Such were the last words of the woman revolutionist in 
this conversation keeping so close to the truth, departing 
from it so far in the verisimilitude of thoughts and con- 
clusions as to give one the notion of the invincible nature 
of human error, a glimpse into the utmost depths of self- 
deception. Razumov, after shaking hands with Sophia 
Antonovna, left the grounds, crossed the road, and, walk- 
ing out on the little steamboat pier, leaned over the rail. 

His mind was at ease ; ease such as he had not known 
for many days, ever since that night . . . the night. 
The conversation with the woman revolutionist had 
given him the view of his danger at the very moment 
this danger vanished, characteristically enough. “I 
ought to have foreseen the doubts that would arise 
in those people’s minds,” he thought. Then his at- 
tention being attracted by a stone of peculiar shape 
which he could see clearly lying at the bottom, he be- 
gan to speculate as to the depth of water in that spot. 
But very soon, with a start of wonder at this extraor- 
dinary instance of ill-timed detachment, he returned to 
his train of thought. ‘‘I ought to have told very cir- 

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UNDER WESTERN EYES 


cumstantial lies from the first,” he said to himself, with 
a mortal distaste of the mere idea which silenced his 
mental utterance for quite a perceptible interval. 
‘‘Luckily that’s all right now,” he reflected, and after 
a time spoke to himself half aloud: “Thanks to the 
devil,” and laughed a little. 

The end of Ziemianitch then arrested his wandering 
thoughts. He was not exactly amused at the interpre- 
tation, but he could not help detecting in it a certain 
piquancy. He owned to himself that, had he known of 
that suicide before leaving Russia, he would have been 
incapable of making such excellent use of it for his own 
purposes. He ought to be infinitely obliged to the fel- 
low with the red nose for his patience and ingenuity. 
“A wonderful psychologist apparently,” he said to him- 
self, sarcastically. Remorse, indeed! It was a striking 
example of your true conspirator’s blindness, of the 
stupid subtlety of people with one idea. This was a 
drama of love, not of conscience, Razumov continued to 
himself, mockingly. A woman the old fellow was mak- 
ing up to! A robust peddler, clearly a rival, throwing 
him down a flight of stairs. . . , And at sixty, for a life- 
long lover, it was not an easy matter to get over. That 
was a feminist of a different stamp from Peter Ivano- 
vitch. Even the comfort of the bottle might con- 
ceivably fail him in this supreme crisis. At such an age 
nothing but a halter could cure the pangs of an un- 
quenchable passion. And, besides, there was the wild 
exasperation aroused by the unjust aspersions and the 
contumely of the house, with the maddening impossi- 
bility to account for that mysterious thrashing added to 
these simple and bitter sorrows. “Devil. Eh?” Raz- 
umov exclaimed, with mental excitement, as if he had 
made an interesting discovery. “Ziemianitch ended by 
falling into mysticism. So many of our true Russian 
souls end in that way! Very characteristic.” He felt 
pity for Ziemianitch, a large, neutral pity, such as one 
19 279 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 

may feel for an unconscious multitude, a great people 
seen from above like a community of crawling ants work- 
ing out its destiny. It was as if this Ziemianitch could 
not possibly have done anything else. And Sophia An- 
tonovna’s cocksure and contemptuous “some police 
hound” was characteristically Russian in another way. 
But there was no tragedy there. This was a comedy of 
errors. It was as if the devil himself were playing a 
game with all of them in turn. First with him, then 
with Ziemianitch, then with those revolutionists. The 
devil’s own game this. . . . He interrupted his earnest 
mental soliloquy with a jocular thought at his own ex- 
pense. “Hello! I am falling into mysticism, too.” 

His mind was more at ease than ever. Turning about, 
he put his back against the rail comfortably. “All this 
fits with marvelous aptness,” he continued to think. 
“The brilliance of my reputed exploit is no longer dark- 
ened by the fate of my supposed colleague. The mystic 
Ziemianitch accounts for that. An incredible chance 
has served me. No more need of lies. I shall have only 
to listen and to keep my scorn from getting the upper 
hand of my caution.” 

He sighed, folded his arms, his chin dropped on his 
breast, and it was a long time before he started forward 
from that pose, with the recollection that he had made 
up his mind to do something important that day. What 
it was he could not immediately recall, yet he made no 
effort of memory, for he was uneasily certain that he 
would remember presently. 

He had not gone more than a hundred yards toward 
the town when he slowed down, almost faltered in his 
walk, at the sight of a figure walking in the contrary 
direction, draped in a cloak under a soft, broad-brimmed 
hat, picturesque but diminutive, as if seen through the 
big end of an opera-glass. It was impossible to avoid 
that tiny man, for there was no issue for retreat. 

“Another one going to that mysterious meeting,” 
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UNDER WESTERN EYES 


tho{ight Razumov. He was right in his surmise— only 
this one, unlike the others who came from a distance, 
was known to him personally. Still he hoped to pass 
on with a mere bow, but it was impossible to ignore the 
little, thin hand, with hairy wrist and knuckles, protruded 
in a friendly way from under the folds of the cloak worn 
Spanish-wise, in disregard of a fairly warm day, a corner 
flung over the shoulder. 

“ And how is Herr Razumov?’’ sounded the greeting in 
German, by that alone made more odious to the object 
of the affable recognition. At closer quarters the 
diminutive personage looked like a reduction of an 
ordinary-sized man, with a lofty brow bared for a mo- 
ment by the raising of the hat, the great pepper-and-salt 
full beard spread over the proportionally broad chest. 
A fine bold nose jutted over a thin mouth hidden in the 
mass of fine hair. All this — accented features, strong 
limbs in their relative smallness — appeared delicate 
without the slightest sign of debility. The eyes alone, 
almond-shaped and brown, were too big and as if 
misty, with the whites slightly bloodshot by much pen 
labor under a lamp. The obscure celebrity of the tiny 
man was well known to Razumov. Polyglot, of un- 
known parentage, of indefinite nationality, anarchist 
with a pedantic and ferocious temperament and an 
amazingly inflammatory capacity for invective, he was a 
power in the background, this violent pamphleteer, 
clamoring for revolutionary justice, this Julius Laspara, 
editor of the Living Word, confidant of conspirators, in- 
dited of sanguinary menaces and manifestoes, suspected 
of being in the secret of every plot. Laspara lived 
in the old town in a somber, narrow house left him by 
a naive middle-class admirer of his humanitarian elo- 
quence. With him lived his two daughters, who over- 
topped him head and shoulders; and a pasty-faced, 
lean boy of six, languishing in the dark rooms in blue- 
cotton overalls and clumsy boots, might have be- 
281 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


longed to either one of them or to neither. No stranger 
could tell. Julius Laspara, no doubt, knew which of 
his girls it was who, after casually vanishing for a 
few years, had as casually returned to him possessed 
of that child; but with admirable pedantry he had 
refrained from asking her for details — no, not so much 
as the name of the father — because maternity should 
be an anarchist function. Razumov had been ad- 
mitted twice to that suite of several small, dark rooms 
on the top floor, dusty window-panes, litter of all sorts 
of sweepings all over the place, half-full glasses of tea 
forgotten on every table, the two Laspara daughters 
prowling about enigmatically silent, misty-eyed like the 
father, corsetless and generally in their want of shape 
and the disorder of their rumpled attire resembling old 
dolls, the great but obscure Julius, his feet twisted round 
his three-legged stool, always ready to perceive the 
visitors, the pen instantly dropped, the body screwed 
round with a striking display of the lofty brow and of 
the great, austere beard. When he got down from his 
stool it was as though he had descended from the heights 
of Olympus. He was dwarfed by his daughters, by the 
furniture, by any caller of ordinary stature. But he 
very seldom left it, and still more rarely was seen walking 
in broad daylight. 

It must have been some matter of serious importance 
which had driven him out in that direction that after- 
noon. Evidently he wished to be amiable to that young 
man whose arrival had made some sensation in the 
world of political refugees. In Russian now, which he 
spoke as he spoke and wrote in four or five other Eu- 
ropean languages, without distinction and without force 
(other than that of invective), he inquired if Razumov 
had taken his inscriptions at the University as yet. And 
the young man, shaking his head negatively: “There’s 
plenty of time for that. But meantime are you not go- 
ing to write something for us?” 

282 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


He could not understand how any one could refrain 
from writing on anything — social, economic, historical — 
anything. Any subject could be treated in the right 
spirit and for the ends of social revolution. And, as it 
happened, a friend of his in London had got in touch 
with a Review of advanced ideas. “We must educate, 
educate everybody — develop the great thought of abso- 
lute liberty and of revolutionary justice.” 

Razumov muttered, rather surlily, that he did not 
even know English. 

“Write in Russian. We’ll have it translated. There 
can be no difficulty. Why, without seeking further, 
there is Miss Haldin. My daughters go to see her some- 
times. You know the sister.” He nodded significantly. 
“She does nothing — has never done anything in her life. 
She would be quite competent with a little assistance. 
Only write. You know you must. And so good-by for 
the present.” 

He raised his arm and went on. Razumov backed 
against the low wall, looked after him, spat violently, 
and went on his way with an angry mutter. 

“Cursed Jew.” 

He did not know anything about it. Julius Laspara 
might have been a Transylvanian, a Turk, an Andalu- 
sian, or a citizen of one of the Hanse towns, for anything 
he could tell to the contrary. But this is not a story of 
the West, and this exclamation must be recorded ac- 
companied by the comment that it was merely an ex- 
pression of hate and contempt, best adapted to the 
nature of the feelings Razumov suffered from at the 
time. He was boiling with rage as though he had been 
grossly insulted. He walked as if blind, following in- 
stinctively the shore of the diminutive harbor along the 
quay, through a prettily dull garden where dull people 
sat on chairs under the trees, till, his fury abandoning 
him, ^ he discovered himself in the middle of a long, 
broad bridge. He slowed down at once; to his right, 
283 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


beyond the toy-like jetties, he saw the green slopes 
framing the Petit Lac in all the marvelous banality of the 
picturesque made of painted cardboard with the more 
distant stretch of water inanimate and shining like a 
piece of tin. 

He turned his head away from that view for the 
tourists and walked on slowly, his eyes fixed on the 
ground. One or two persons had to get out of his way 
and then turned round to give a surprised stare to his 
profound absorption. The insistence of the celebrated 
subversive journalist rankled in his mind strangely. 
Write. Must write! He! Write! A sudden light 
flashed upon him. To write was the very thing he had 
made up his mind to do that day. He had made up his 
mind irrevocably to that step and then had forgotten all 
about it. That incorrigible tendency to escape from the 
grip of the situation was fraught with serious danger. 
He was ready to despise himself for it. What was it? 
Levity or deep - seated weakness ? Or an unconscious 
dread ? 

“Is it that I am shrinking? It can’t be! It’s im- 
possible. To shrink now would be worse than moral 
suicide — it would be nothing less than moral damna- 
tion,” he thought. “Is it possible that I have a con- 
ventional conscience?” 

He rejected that hypothesis with scorn and, checked 
on the edge of the pavement, made ready to cross the 
road and proceed up the wide street facing the head of 
the bridge; and that for no other reason except that it 
was there before him. But at the moment a couple of 
carriages and a slow moving cart interposed, and sud- 
denly he turned sharp to the left, following the quay 
again, but now away from the lake. 

“ It may be just my health,” he thought, allowing him- 
self a very unusual doubt of his soundness ; for, with the 
exception of a childish ailment or two, he had never been 
ill in his life. But that was a danger, too. Only it 
284 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 

seemed as though he were being looked after in a spe- 
cially remarkable way. “If I believed in an active 
Providence,” Razumov said to himself, amused grimly, 
” I would see here the working of an ironical finger. To 
have a Julius Laspara put in my way as if expressly to 
remind me of my purpose is . . . Write, he had said. 
I must write. I must, indeed! I shall write — ^never 
fear. Certainly. That’s why I am here. And for the 
future I shall have something to write about.” 

He was exciting himself by this mental soliloquy. But 
the idea of writing evoked the thought of a place to 
write in, of shelter, of privacy, and, naturally, of his 
lodgings, mingled with a distaste for the necessary 
exertion of getting there, with a mistrust as of some 
hostile influence awaiting him within those odious four 
walls. 

“Suppose one of these revolutionists,” he asked him- 
self, “were to take a fancy to call on me while I am 
writing.” The mere prospect of such an interruption 
made him shudder. One could lock one’s door — or ask 
the tobacconist down-stairs (some sort of a refugee him- 
self) to tell inquirers that one was not in. Not very 
good precautions, those. The manner of his life, he 
felt, must be kept clear of every cause for suspicion 
or even occasion for wonder, down to such trifling oc- 
currences as a delay in opening a locked door. “ I wish 
I were in the middle of some field miles away from 
everywhere,” he thought. 

He had unconsciously turned to the left once more 
and now w;as aware of being on a bridge again. This 
one was much narrower than the other, and, instead of 
being straight, made a sort of elbow or angle. At the 
point of that angle a short arm joined it to a hexagonal 
islet with a soil of gravel, and its shores faced with dressed 
stone, a perfection of puerile neatness. A couple of tall 
poplars and a few other trees stood grouped on the clean, 
dark gravel, and under them a few garden benches and a 
28 k 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 

bronze effigy of Jean Jacques Rousseau seated on its 
pedestal. 

On setting his foot on it Razumov became aware that, 
except for the woman in charge of the refreshment chdlet, 
there was no one on the island. There was something of 
naive, odious, and inane simplicity about that unfre- 
quented tiny crumb of earth named after Jean Jacques 
Rousseau. Something pretentious and shabby, too. 
He asked for a glass of milk, which he drank standing at 
one draught (nothing but tea had passed his lips since 
the morning) , and was going away with a weary, lagging 
step when a thought stopped him short. He had found 
precisely what he needed. If solitude could ever be 
secured in the open air in the middle of a town, he would 
have it there on this absurd island, together with the 
faculty of watching the only approach. 

He went back heavily to a garden seat, dropped into 
it. This was the place for making a beginning of that 
writing which had to be done. The materials he had on 
him. “I shall always come here,” he said to himself, 
and afterward sat for quite a long time motionless, with- 
out thought and sight and hearing, almost without life. 
He sat long enough for the declining sun to dip behind 
the roofs of the town at his back and throw the shadow 
of the houses on the lake front over the islet, before he 
pulled out of his pocket a fountain-pen, opened a small 
note-book on his knee, and began to write quickly, raising 
his eyes now and then at the connecting arm of the 
bridge. These glances were needless, the people crossing 
over in the distance seemed unwilling even to look at the 
islet where the exiled effigy of the author of the Social 
Contract towered above the bowed head of Razumov in 
the somber immobility of bronze. After finishing his 
scribbling, Razumov, with a sort of feverish haste, put 
away the pen, then rammed the note-book into his 
pocket, first tearing out the written pages with an almost 
convulsive brusqueness. But the folding of the flimsy 
286 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


batch on his knee was executed with thoughtful nicety. 
That done, he leaned back in his seat and remained 
motionless with the papers crushed in his left hand. 
The twilight had deepened. He got up and began to 
pace to and fro slowly under the trees. 

“There can be no doubt that now I am safe,” he 
thought. His fine ear could detect the faintly accen- 
tuated murmurs of the current breaking against the 
point of the island, and he forgot himself in listening to 
them with interest. But even to his acute sense of hear- 
ing the sound was too elusive. 

“ Extraordinary occupation I am giving myself up to,” 
he murmured. And it occurred to him that this was 
about the only sound he could listen to innocently and 
for his own pleasure, as it were. Yes, the sound of 
water, the voice of the wind — completely foreign to 
human passions. All the other sounds of this earth 
brought contamination to the solitude of a soul. 

That was Mr. Razumov’s feeling, the soul, of course, 
being his own, and the word being used not in the 
theological sense, but standing, as far as I can under- 
stand it, for that part of Mr. Razumov which was not 
his body and more specially in danger from the fires of 
this earth. It is well known that the way of salvation is 
hard, darkened by the shades of error and made lonely 
to an independent traveler. Even they who travel in 
guided troops and organized caravans are not spared 
the terrors of isolation. And it must be admitted that 
in Mr. Razumov’s case the bitterness of solitude from 
which he suffered was not an altogether morbid phe- 
nomenon. 





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T hat I should, at the beginning of this retrospect, 
mention again that Mr. Razumov’s youth had no 
one in the world, as literally no one as it can be honestly 
affirmed of any human being, is but a statement of fact 
from a man who believes in the psychological value of 
facts. There is also, perhaps, a desire of punctilious fair- 
ness. Unidentified with any one in this narrative where 
the aspects of honor and shame are remote from the 
ideas of the western world, and taking my stand on the 
ground of common humanity, it is for that very reason 
that I feel a strange reluctance to state baldly here what 
every reader has most likely already discovered him- 
self. Such reluctance may appear absurd if it were not 
for the thought that because the imperfection of language 
there is always something ungracious (and even dis- 
graceful) in the exhibition of naked truth. But the time 
has come when Councilor of State Mikulin can no longer 
be ignored. His simple question, “Where to?” on which 
we left Mr. Razumov in St. Petersburg, throws a light on 
the general meaning of this individual case. 

“Where to?” was the answer in the form of a gentle 
question to what we may call Mr. Razumov’s declaration 
of independence. The question was not menacing in 
the least, and, indeed, had the ring of innocent inquiry. 
Had it been taken in a merely topographical sense, the 
only answer to it would have appeared sufficiently ap- 
palling to Mr. Razumov. Where to? Back to his 
rooms where the revolution had sought him out to put 
to a sudden test his dormant instincts, his half-conscious 
291 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


thoughts and almost wholly unconscious ambitions, by 
the touch as of some furious and dogmatic religion with 
its call to frantic sacrifices, its tender resignations, its 
dreams and hopes uplifting the soul, by the side of the 
most somber moods of despair. And Mr. Razumov had 
let go the door-handle and had come back to the middle 
of the room asking Councilor Mikulin, angrily, “What 
do you mean by it ?” 

As far as I can tell, Councilor Mikulin did not answer 
that question. He drew Mr. Razumov into familiar 
conversation. It is the peculiarity of Russian natures 
that, however strongly engaged in the drama of action, 
they are still turning their ear to the murmur of abstract 
ideas. This conversation (and others later on) need not 
be recorded. Suffice it to say that it brought Mr. 
Razumov, as we know him, to the test of another faith. 
There was nothing official in its expression, and Mr. 
Razumov was led to defend his attitude of detachment. 
But Councilor Mikulin would have none of his arguments. 
“ For a man like you,” were his last weighty words in the 
discussion, “such a position is impossible. Don’t forget 
that I have seen that interesting piece of paper. I un- 
derstand your liberalism. I have an intellect of that 
kind myself. Reform for me is mainly a question of 
method. But the principle of revolt is a physical in- 
toxication, a sort of hysteria which must be kept away 
from the masses. You agree to this without reserve, 
don’t you? Because, you see, Kirylo Sidorovitch, ab- 
stention, reserve, in certain situations, come very near 
to political crime. The ancient Greeks understood that 
very well.” 

Mr. Razumov, listening with a faint smile, asked 
Councilor Mikulin point-blank if this meant he was going 
to have him watched. 

The high official took no offense at the cynical inquiry. 

“No, Kirylo Sidorovitch,” he answered, gravely^ “I 
don’t mean to have you watched.” 

293 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


Razumov, suspecting a lie, affected the greatest liberty 
of mind during the short remainder of that interview. 
The older man expressed himself throughout in familiar 
terms and with a sort of shrewd simplicity. Razumov 
concluded that to get to the bottom of that mind was an 
impossible feat. A great disquiet made his heart beat 
quicker. The high official, issuing from behind the desk, 
was actually offering to shake hands with him. 

“ Good-by, Mr. Razumov. An understanding between 
intelligent men is always a satisfactory occurrence. Is 
it not ? And, of course, these rebel gentlemen have not 
the monopoly of intelligence.’* 

“I presume that I shall not be wanted any more?” 
Razumov brought out that question while his hand was 
still being grasped. Councilor Mikulin released it 
slowly. 

“That, Mr. Razumov,” he said, with great earnestness, 
“is as it may be. God alone knows the future. But 
you may rest assured that I never thought of having 
you watched. You are a young man of great inde- 
pendence. Yes. You are going away free as air, but 
you shall end by coming back to us.” 

“I! I!” Razumov exclaimed in an appalled murmur 

of protest. “What for?” he added, feebly. 

“Yes! You, yourself, Kirylo Sidorovitch,” the high 
police functionary insisted, in a low, severe tone of con- 
viction. “You shall be coming back to us. Some of 
our greatest minds had to do that in the end.” 

“Our greatest minds?” repeated Razumov, in a dazed 
voice. 

“Yes, indeed! Our greatest minds. . . . Good-by.” 

Razumov, shown out of the room, walked away from 
the door. But before he got to the end of the passage he 
heard heavy footsteps and a voice calling upon him to 
stop. He turned his head and was startled to see Coun- 
cilor Mikulin pursuing him in person. The high func- 
tionary hurried up, very simple, slightly out of breath. 

293 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


“One minute. As to what we were talking about 
just now, it shall be as God wills it. But I may have 
occasion to require you again. You look surprised, 
Kirylo Sidorovitch. Yes, ... to clear up any further 
point that may turn up.” 

“But I don’t know anything,” stammered out Razu- 
mov. “ I couldn’t possibly know anything.” 

“Who can tell? Things are ordered in a wonderful 
manner. Who can tell what may become disclosed to 
you before this day is out? You have been already the 
instrument of Providence. You smile, Kirylo Sidoro- 
vitch; you are an esprit jort."' (Razumov was not 
conscious of having smiled.) “ But I believe firmly 
in Providence. Such a confession on the lips of an 
old, hardened official like me may sound to you funny. 
But you yourself yet some day shall recognize. ... Or 
else what happened to you cannot be accounted for at 
all. Yes, decidedly, I shall have occasion to see you 
again, but not here. This wouldn’t be quite — h’m . . . 
Some convenient place shall be made known to you. 
And even the written communications between us in 
that respect or in any other had better pass through 
the intermediary of our — if I may express myself so — 

mutual friend, Prince K . Now I beg you, Kirylo 

Sidorovitch — don’t! I am certain he’ll consent. You 
must give me the credit of being aware of what I 
am saying. You have no better friend than Prince 

K , and, as to myself, it is a long time now since I’ve 

been honored by his . . .” 

He glanced down his beard. 

“ I won’t detain you any longer. We live in difficult 
times, in times of monstrous chimeras and evil dreams 
and criminal follies. We shall certainly meet once 
more. It may be some little time, though, before we do. 
Till then may Heaven send you fruitful reflections.” 

Once in the street, Razumov started off rapidly, with- 
out caring for the direction. At first he thought of 
294 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


nothing; but in a little while the consciousness of his 
position presented itself to him as something so ugly, 
dangerous, and absurd, the difficulty of ever freeing 
himself from the toils of that complication so insoluble, 
that the idea of going back and, as he termed it to him- 
self, confessing to Councilor Mikulin flashed through his 
mind. 

Go back! What for? Confess! To what? “I have 
been speaking to him with the greatest openness,” he 
said to himself with perfect truth. “What else could I 
tell him? That I have undertaken to carry a message 
to that brute Ziemianitch ? Establish a false com- 
plicity and destroy what chance of safety I have won 
for nothing? — ^what folly!” 

Yet he could not defend himself from fancying that 
Councilor Mikulin was, perhaps, the only man in the 
world able to understand his conduct. To be under- 
stood appeared extremely fascinating. 

On the way home he had to stop several times ; all his 
strength seemed to run out of his limbs, and in the 
movement of the busy streets, isolated as if in a desert, 
he remained suddenly motionless for a minute or so 
before he could proceed on his way. He reached his 
rooms at last. 

Then came an illness, something in the nature of a 
low fever which all at once removed him to a great dis- 
tance from the perplexing actualities, from his very 
room, even. He never lost consciousness; he only 
seemed to himself to be existing languidly somewhere 
very far away from everything that had ever happened 
to him. He came out of this state slowly, with an 
effect, that is to say, of extreme slowness, though the 
actual number of days was not very great. And when 
he had got back into the middle of things, they were all 
changed, subtly and provokingly in their nature — inani- 
mate objects, human faces, the landlady, the rustic 
servant girl, the staircase, the streets, the very air. He 
20 295 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


tackled these changed conditions in a spirit of severity. 
He walked to and from the University, ascended stairs, 
paced the passages, listened to lectures, took notes, 
crossed courtyards in angry aloofness, his teeth set hard 
till his jaws ached. 

He was perfectly aware of mad-cap Kostia gazing like 
a young retriever from a distance, of the famished 
student with the red, drooping nose keeping scrupu- 
lously away as desired, of twenty others, perhaps, he 
knew well enough to speak to. And they all had an air 
of curiosity and concern as if they expected something to 
happen. “This can’t last much longer,” thought Razu- 
mov more than once. On certain days he was afraid 
that any one addressing him suddenly in a certain way 
would make him scream out insanely in a lot of filthy 
abuse. Often, after returning home, he would drop into 
a chair in his cap and cloak and remain still for hours 
holding some book he had got from the library in his 
hand, or he would pick up the little penknife and sit 
there scraping his nails endlessly and feeling furious all 
the time — simply furious. “This is impossible,” he 
would mutter suddenly to the empty room. 

Fact to be noted: this room might conceivably have 
become physically repugnant to him, emotionally in- 
tolerable, morally uninhabitable. But no. Nothing of 
the sort (and he had himself dreaded it at first) , nothing 
of the sort happened. On the contrary, he liked his 
lodgings better than any other shelter he, who had never 
known a home, had ever hired before. He liked his 
lodgings so well that often, on that very account, he 
found a certain difficulty in making up his mind to go 
out. It resembled a physical seduction such as, for in- 
stance, makes a man reluctant to leave the neighborhood 
of a fire on a cold day. 

For as at that time he seldom stirred except to go to 
the University (what else was there to do?), it followed 
that whenever he went abroad he felt himself at once 
296 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


closely involved in the moral consequences of his act. 
It was there that the dark prestige of the Haldin mystery 
fell on him, clung to him like a poisoned robe it was 
impossible to fling off. He suffered from it exceed- 
ingly, as well as from the conversational, commonplace, 
unavoidable intercourse with the other kind of students. 
“They must be wondering at the change in me,” he re- 
flected, anxiously. He had an uneasy recollection of hav- 
ing savagely told one or two innocent, nice-enough fellows 
to go to the devil. Once a married professor he used to 
call upon formerly addressed him in passing: “How is 
it we never see you at our Wednesdays now, Kirylo 
Sidorovitch ?” Razumov was conscious of meeting this 
advance with odious, muttering boorishness. The pro- 
fessor was obviously too astonished to be offended. All 
this was bad. And all this was Haldin, always Haldin — 
nothing but Haldin — everywhere Haldin: a moral specter 
inflnitely more effective than any visible apparition of the 
dead. It was only the room through which that man had 
blundered on his way from crime to death that his specter 
did not seem to be able to haunt. Not, to be exact, that 
he was ever completely absent from it, but that there he 
had no sort of power. There it was Mr. Razumov who had 
the upper hand, in a composed sense, of his own superior- 
ity. A vanquished phantom — nothing more. Often in 
the evening, his repaired watch faintly ticking on the 
table by the side of the lighted lamp, Razumov would 
look up from his writing and stare at the bed with an 
expectant, dispassionate attention. Nothing was ever 
to be seen there. He never really supposed that any- 
thing ever should be seen there. After a while he would 
shrug his shoulders slightly and bend again over his 
work. For he had gone to work, and, at first, with some 
success. His unwillingness to leave that place where 
he was safe from Haldin grew so strong that at last he 
ceased to go out at all. From early morning till far 
into the night he wrote, he wrote for nearly a week; 

297 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


never looking at the time, and only throwing himself on 
the bed when he could keep his eyes open no longer. 
Then, one afternoon, quite casually, he happened to 
glance at his watch. He laid down his pen slowly. 

“At this very hour,” was his thought, “the fellow 
stole unseen into this room while I was out. And 
there he sat quiet as a mouse — perhaps in this very 
chair.” 

Razumov got up and began to pace the floor steadily, 
glancing at the watch now and then. “This is the time 
when I returned and found him standing against the 
stove,” he observed to himself. When it grew dark 
he lit his lamp. Later on he interrupted his tramping 
once more only to wave away angrily the girl who at- 
tempted to enter the room with tea and something to 
eat on a tray. And presently he noted the watch point- 
ing at the hour of his own going forth into the falling 
snow on that terrible errand. 

“Complicity,” he muttered, faintly, and resumed his 
pacing, keeping his eye on the hands as they crept on 
slowly to the time of his return. 

“And after all,” he thought, suddenly, “I might have 
been the chosen instrument of Providence. This is a 
manner of speaking; but there may be truth in every 
manner of speaking. What if that absurd saying were 
true in its essence?” 

He meditated for a while, then sat down, his legs 
stretched out, with stony eyes and with his arms hang- 
ing down on each side of the chair, like a man totally 
abandoned by Providence — desolate. 

He noted the time of Haldin’s departure, and con- 
tinued to sit still for another half-hour; then, muttering 
“And now to work,” drew up to the table, seized the 
pen, and instantly dropped it under the influence of a 
profoundly disquieting reflection. “ There’s three weeks 
gone by and no word from Mikulin.” 

What did it mean? Was he forgotten? Possibly. 

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UNDER WESTERN EYES 


Then why not remain forgotten — creep in somewhere. 
Hide. But where? How? With whom? In what 
hole ? And was it to be forever, or what ? 

But a retreat was big with shadowy dangers. The 
eye of the Social Revolution was on him, and Razumov 
for a moment felt an unnamed and despairing dread 
mingled with an odious sense of humiliation. Was it 
possible that he no longer belonged to himself? This 
was damnable. But why not simply keep on as before? 
Study. Advance. Work hard as if nothing had hap- 
pened (and first of all win the silver medal), acquire 
distinction, become a great reforming servant of the 
greatest of states. Servant, too, of the mightiest homo- 
geneous mass of mankind, with a capability for logical, 
guided development in a brotherly solidarity of force 
and aim such as the world had never dreamed of. . . . 
The Russian nation! . . . 

Calm, resolved, steady in his great purpose, he was 
stretching his hand toward the pen when he happened to 
glance toward the bed. He rushed at it, enraged, with 
a mental scream: “It’s you, crazy fanatic, who stands 
in the way!” He flung the pillow on the floor violent- 
ly, tore the blankets aside. . . . Nothing there. And, 
turning away, he caught for an instant in the air, like a 
vivid detail in a dissolving view of two heads, the eyes 

of General T and of Privy-Councilor Mikulin, side 

by side, fixed upon him, quite different in character, but 
with the same unflinching and weary and yet purposeful 
expression. . . . Servants of the nation! 

Razumov tottered to the washstand very alarmed 
about himself, drank some water and bathed his fore- 
head. “This will pass and leave no trace,” he thought, 
confidently. “I am all right.” But as to supposing 
that he had been forgotten, it was perfect nonsense. He 
was a marked man on that side. And that was noth- 
ing. It was what that miserable phantom stood for 
which had to be got out of the way. . . . “If one only 
299 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


could go and spit it all out at some of them — and take 
the consequences.” 

He imagined himself accosting the red-nosed student 
and suddenly shaking his fist in his face. “From that 
one, though,” he reflected, “there’s nothing to be got, 
because he has no mind of his own. He’s living in a 
red democratic trance. Ah! you want to smash your 
way into universal happiness, my boy. I will give you 
universal happiness, you silly, hypnotized ghoul, you! 
And what about my own happiness, eh ? Haven’t I got 
any right to it just because I can think for myself 1 . . 

And again, but with a different mental accent, Razu- 
mov said to himself : “I am young. Everything can be 
lived down.” At that moment he was crossing the room 
slowly, intending to sit down on the sofa and try to com- 
pose his thoughts. But before he had got so far every- 
thing abandoned him — hope, courage, belief in himself, 
trust in men. His heart had, as it were, suddenly emp- 
tied itself. It was no use struggling on. Rest, work, sol- 
itude, and the frankness of intercourse with his kind were 
alike forbidden to him. Everything was gone. His 
existence was a great, cold blank, something like the 
enormous plain of the whole of Russia leveled with snow 
and fading gradually on all sides into shadows and mist. 

He sat down, with swimming head, closed his eyes, 
and remained like that, sitting bolt upright on the sofa 
and perfectly awake for the rest of the night; till the 
girl, bustling into the outer room with the samovar, 
thumped with her fist on the door, calling out, “Kirylo 
Sidorovitch, please! It is time for you to get up!” 

Then, pale like a corpse obeying the dread summons of 
judgment, Razumov opened his eyes and got up. 

Nobody will be surprised to hear, I suppose, that when 
the summons came he went to see Councilor Mikulin. 
It came that very morning while, looking white and 
shaky like an invalid just out of bed, he was trying to 
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UNDER WESTERN EYES 


shave himself. The envelope was addressed in the little 
attorney’s handwriting. That envelope contained an- 
other superscribed to Razumov in Prince K ’s hand, 

with the request, “Please forward under cover at once,” 
in a comer. The note inside was an autograph of 
Councilor Mikulin. The writer stated candidly that 
nothing had arisen which needed clearing up, but, never- 
theless, appointed a meeting with Mr. Razumov at a 
certain address in town which seemed to be that of an 
oculist. 

Razumov read it, finished shaving, dressed, looked at 
the note again, and muttered, gloomily, “Oculist.” He 
pondered over it for a time, lit a match, and burned 
the two envelopes and the enclosure carefully. After- 
ward he waited, sitting perfectly idle and not even look- 
ing at anything in particular till the appointed hour 
drew near — and then went out. 

Whether, looking at the unofficial character of the 
summons, he might have refrained from attending to it, 
is hard to say. Probably not. At any rate, he went; 
but, what’s more, he went with a certain eagerness which 
may appear incredible till it is remembered that Councilor 
Mikulin was the only person on earth with whom Razu- 
mov could talk, taking the Haldin adventure for granted. 
And Haldin, when once taken for granted, was no longer a 
haunting, falsehood-breeding specter. Whatever troub- 
ling power he exercised in all the other places of the 
earth, Razumov knew very well that at this oculist’s 
address he would be merely the hanged murderer of Mr. 

de P , and nothing more. For the dead can live only 

with the exact intensity and quality of the life imparted 
to them by the living. So Mr. Razumov, certain of 
relief, went to meet Councilor Mikulin with the eagerness 
of a pursued person welcoming any sort of shelter. 

This much said, there is no need to tell anything more 
of that first interview and of the several others. To the 
morality of a western reader an account of these meet- 
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UNDER WESTERN EYES 


ings would wear, perhaps, the sinister character of old, 
legendary tales where the Enemy of Mankind is repre- 
sented holding subtly mendacious dialogues with some 
tempted soul. It is not my part to protest. Let me 
but remark that the Evil One, with his single passion of 
Satanic pride for the only motive, is yet, on a larger, 
modern view, allowed to be not quite so black as he used 
to be painted. With what greater latitude, then, should 
we appraise the exact shade of mere mortal man with 
his many passions and his miserable ingenuity in error, 
always dazzled by the base glitter of mixed motives, 
everlastingly betrayed by a short-sighted wisdom. 

Councilor Mikulin was one of those powerful officials 
who, in a position not obscure, not occult, but simple, 
inconspicuous, exercise a great influence over the 
methods rather than over the conduct of affairs. A de- 
votion to Church and Throne is not in itself a criminal 
sentiment; to prefer the will of one to the will of many 
does not argue the possession of a black heart or prove 
congenital idiocy. Councilor Mikulin was not only a 
clever, but also subtle official. Privately he was a 
bachelor with a love of comfort, living alone in an apart- 
ment of five rooms luxuriously furnished, and was 
known by his intimates to be an enlightened patron of 
the art of female dancing. Later on, the larger world 
first heard of him in the very hour of his downfall, during 
one of those State trials which astonish and puzzle the 
average plain man who reads the newspapers by a glimpse 
of unsuspected intrigues. And in the stir of vaguely 
seen monstrosities, in that momentary, mysterious dis- 
turbance of muddy waters. Councilor Mikulin went 
under, dignified, with only a calm, emphatic protest of 
his innocence — nothing more. No disclosure damaging 
to a harassed autocracy, complete fidelity to the secret of 
the miserable arcana imperii, deposited in his patriotic 
breast a display of bureaucratic stoicism in a Russian 
official’s ineradicable, almost sublime contempt for truth; 

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UNDER WESTERN EYES 


stoicism of silence understood only by the very few oi 
the initiated, and not without a certain cynical grandeur 
of self-sacrifice on the part of a Sybarite. For the ter- 
ribly heavy sentence turned Councilor Mikulin civilly 
into a corpse, and actually into something very much 
like a common convict. 

It seems that the savage autocracy, any more than 
the divine democracy, does not limit its diet exclu- 
sively to the bodies of its enemies. It devours its 
friends and servants as well. The downfall of his Ex- 
cellency, Gregory Gregorievitch Mikulin (which did not 
occur till some years later) , completes all that is known 

of the man. But at the time of Mr. de P 's murder 

(or execution). Councilor Mikulin, under the modest 
style of Head of Department at the General Secretariat, 
exercises a wide influence as the confidant and right- 
hand man of his former school-fellow and lifelong friend. 

General T . One can imagine them talking over the 

case of Mr. Razumov in the full sense of their unbounded 
power over all the lives in Russia, with cursory disdain, 
like two Olympians glancing at a worm. The relation- 
ship with Prince K was enough to save Razumov 

from some carelessly arbitrary proceeding, and it is also 
very probable that after the interview at the Secretariat 
he would have been left alone. Councilor Mikulin 
would have not forgotten him (he forgot no one who ever 
fell under his observation), but would have simply 
dropped him forever. Councilor Mikulin was a good- 
natured man, and wished no harm to any one, besides 
(with his own reforming tendencies) being favorably im- 
pressed by that young student, the son of Prince K , 

and apparently no fool. 

But, as fate would have it, while Mr. Razumov was 
finding that no way of life was possible to him. Councilor 
Mikulin’s discreet abilities were rewarded by a very re- 
sponsible post — ^nothing less than the direction of the 
general police supervision over Europe. And it was 

303 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


then, and then only, when taking in hand the perfecting 
of the service which watches the revolutionist activities 
abroad, that he thought again of Mr. Razumov. He saw 
great possibilities of special usefulness in that uncommon 
young man, on whom he had a hold already, with his 
peculiar temperament, his unsettled mind and shaken 
conscience, and struggling in the toils of a false position. 
... It was as if the revolutionists themselves had put 
in his hand that tool so much finer than the common 
base instruments, so perfectly fitted, if only vested with 
sufficient credit, to penetrate into places inaccessible to 
common informers. Providential! Providential! And 

Prince K , taken into the secret, was ready enough 

to adopt that mystical view, too. “It will be neces- 
sary, though, to make a career for him afterward,” he 
had stipulated, anxiously. “Oh! Absolutely. We shall 
make that our affair,” Mikulin had agreed. Prince 

K ’s mysticism was of an artless kind, but Councilor 

Mikulin was astute enough for two. 

Things and men have always a certain sense, a certain 
side by which they must be got hold of, if one wants to 
obtain a solid grasp and a perfect command. The power 
of Councilor Mikulin consisted in the ability to seize 
upon that sense, that side, in the men he used. It did 
not matter to him what it was — vanity, despair, love, 
hate, greed, intelligent pride, or stupid conceit — it was 
all one to him as long as the man could be made to serve. 
The obscure, unrelated young student, Razumov, in the 
moment of great moral loneliness, was allowed to feel 
that he was an object of interest to a small group of 

people of high position. Prince K was persuaded 

to intervene personally, and on a certain occasion gave 
way to a manly emotion which, all unexpected as it was, 
quite upset Mr. Razumov. The sudden embrace of that 
man, agitated by his loyalty to a throne and by sup- 
pressed paternal affection, was a revelation to Mr. 
Razumov of something within his own breast. 

304 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


“So that was it!” he exclaimed to himself. A sort of 
contemptuous tenderness softened the young man’s 
grim view of his position as he reflected upon that 

agitated interview with Prince K . This simple- 

minded, worldly ex-guardsman and senator, whose soft- 
gray, official whiskers had brushed against his cheek, his 
aristocratic and convinced father, was he a whit less 
estimable or more absurd than that famine-stricken, 
fanatical revolutionist, the red-nosed student? 

And there was some pressure, too, besides the persua- 
siveness. Mr. Razumov was always being made to feel 
that he had committed himself. There was no getting 
away from that feeling, from that soft unanswerable 
“Where to?” of Councilor Mikulin. But no suscepti- 
bilities were ever hurt. It was to be a dangerous mission 
to Geneva, for obtaining, at a critical moment, absolutely 
reliable information from a very inaccessible quarter of 
the inner revolutionary circle. There were indications 
that a very serious plot was being matured. . . . The 
repose indispensable to a great country was at stake. . . . 
A great scheme of orderly reforms would be endangered. 

. . . The highest personages in the land were patriotically 
uneasy, and so on. In short. Councilor Mikulin knew 
what to say. This skill is to be inferred clearly from the 
mental and psychological self-confession, self-analysis of 
Mr. Razumov’s written journal — ^the pitiful resource of a 
young man who had near him no trusted intimacy, no 
natural affection to turn to. 

How all this preliminary work was concealed from 
observation need not be recorded. The expedient of the 
oculist gives a sufficient instance. Councilor Mikulin 
was resourceful, and the task was not very difficult. 
Any fellow-student, even the red -nosed one, was per- 
fectly welcome to see Mr. Razumov entering a private 
house to consult an oculist. Ultimate success depended 
solely on the revolutionary self-delusion which credited 
Razumov with a mysterious complicity in the Haldin 

305 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


affair. To be compromised in it was credit enough — 
and it was their own doing. It was precisely that which 
stamped Mr. Razumov as a providential man, wide as 
poles apart from the usual type of agent for “European 
supervision.” 

And it was that which the Secretariat set itself the task 
to foster by a course of calculated and false indiscre- 
tions. 

It came at last to this, that one evening Mr. Razumov 
was unexpectedly called upon by one of the “thinking” 
students whom formerly, before the Haldin affair, he 
used to meet at various private gatherings; a big fellow 
with a quiet, unassuming manner and a pleasant voice. 

Recognizing his voice raised in the anteroom, “May 
one come in” — Razumov, lounging idly on his couch, 
jumped up. “Suppose he were coming to stab me?” 
he thought, sardonically, and, assuming a green shade 
over his left eye, said, in a severe tone, “Come in.” 

The other was embarrassed; hoped he was not in- 
truding. 

“You haven’t been seen for several days, and I’ve 
wondered.” He coughed a little. “Eye better?” 

“Nearly well now.” 

“Good. I won’t stop a minute; but, you see, I — that 
is, we — ^anyway, I have undertaken the duty to warn 
you, Kirylo Sidorovitch, that you are living in false 
security, maybe.” 

Razumov sat still with his head leaning on his hand, 
which nearly concealed the unshaded eye. 

“I have that idea, too.” 

“That’s all right, then. Everything seems quiet now, 
but those people are preparing some move of general 
repression. That’s of course. But it isn’t that I came 
to tell you.” He hitched his chair closer, dropped his 
voice. “You shall be arrested before long — ^we fear.” 

An obscure scribe in the Secretariat had overheard a 
few words of a certain conversation and had caught a 
306 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


glimpse of a certain report. This intelligence was not 
to be neglected. 

Razumov laughed a little, and his visitor became very 
anxious. 

“Ah! Kirylo Sidorovitch, this is no laughing matter. 
They have left you alone for a while, but ... I Indeed, 
you had better try to leave the country, Kirylo Sidoro- 
vitch, while there’s yet time.” 

Razumov jumped up and began to thank him for the 
advice with mocking effusiveness, so that the other, 
coloring up, took himself off, with the notion that this 
mysterious Razumov was not a person to be warned or 
advised by inferior mortals. 

Councilor Mikulin, informed the next day of the in- 
cident, expressed his satisfaction : “H’m. Ha! Exactly 
what was wanted to . . .” and glanced down his beard. 

“I conclude,” said Razumov, “that the moment has 
come for me to start on my mission.” 

“The psychological moment,” Councilor Mikulin in- 
sisted, softly — very grave — as if awed. 

All the arrangements to give verisimilitude to the ap- 
pearance of a difficult escape were made. Councilor 
Mikulin did not expect to see Mr. Razumov again before 
his departure. These meetings were a risk, and there 
was nothing more to settle. 

“We have said everything to each other by now, 
Kirylo Sidorovitch,” said the high official, feelingly, 
pressing Razumov’s hand with that unreserved hearti- 
ness a Russian can convey in his manner. “There is 
nothing obscure between us. And I will tell you what! 
I consider myself fortunate in having — h’m — your ...” 

He glanced down his beard, and, after a moment of 
grave silence, he handed to Razumov a half-sheet of note- 
paper — an abbreviated note of matters already dis- 
cussed, certain points of inquiry, the line of conduct 
agreed on, a few hints as to personalities, and so on. It 
was the only compromising document in the case, but, 
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UNDER WESTERN EYES 


as Councilor Mikulin observed, it could be easily de- 
stroyed. Mr. Razumov had better not see any one noTv 
— ^till on the other side of the frontier, when of course, it 
will be just that ... see and hear and . . . 

He glanced down his beard, but when Razumov de- 
clared his intention to see one person, at least, before 
leaving St. Petersburg, Councilor Mikulin failed to com 
ceal a sudden uneasiness. The young man’s studious, 
solitary, and austere existence was well known to him. 
It was the greatest guarantee of fitness. He became de- 
precatory. Had his dear Kirylo Sidorovitch considered 
whether, in view of such a momentous enterprise, it 
wasn’t really advisable to sacrifice every sentiment . . . ? 

Razumov interrupted the remonstrance scornfully. It 
was not a young woman; it was a young fool he wished 
to see for a certain purpose. Councilor Mikulin was re- 
lieved but surprised. 

“Ah! And what for — precisely?” 

“For the sake of improving the aspect of verisimili- 
tude,” said Razumov, curtly, in a desire to affirm his in- 
dependence. “ I must be trusted in what I do.” 

Councilor Mikulin gave way tactfully, murmuring: 

“ Oh, certainly, certainly. Your judgment . . .” 

And with another handshake they parted. 

The fool of whom Mr. Razumov had thought was the 
rich and festive student known as “Madcap Kostia.” 
Feather-headed, loquacious, excitable, one could make 
certain of his utter and complete indiscretion. But that 
riotous youth, when reminded by Razumov of his offers 
of service some time ago passed from his usual elation 
into boundless dismay. 

“Oh, Kirylo Sidorovitch, my dearest friend — my 
savior — what shall I do? I’ve blown last night every 
ruble I had from my dad the other day. Can’t you 
give me till Thursday? I shall rush round to all the 
usurers I know. ... No! Of course you can’t! Don’t 
look at me like that. What shall I do ? No use asking 
30S 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


the old man. I tell you he’s given me a fistful of big 
notes three days ago. Miserable wretch that I am!” 

He wrung his hands in despair. Impossible to con- 
fide in the old man. “They” had given him a decora- 
tion, a cross on the neck only last year, and he had been 
cursing the modern tendencies ever since. Just then he 
would see all the intellectuals in Russia hanged in a row 
rather than part with a single ruble. 

“Kirylo Sidorovitch, wait a moment. Don’t despise 
me. I have it. I’ll, yes — I’ll do it — I’ll break into his 
desk. There’s no help for it. I know the drawer where 
he keeps his plunder, and I can buy a chisel on my way 
home. He will be terribly upset, but, you know, the 
dear old duffer really loves me. He’ll have to get over 
it — and I, too. Kirylo, my dear soul, if you can only 
wait for a few hours — ^till this evening — I shall steal all 
the blessed lot I can lay my hands on! You doubt me I 
Why? You’ve only to say the word.” 

“Steal by all means,” said Razumov, fixing him, 
stonily. 

“To the devil with the ten commandments!” cried 
the other, with the greatest animation. “It’s the new 
future now.” 

But when he entered Razumov’s room, late in the 
evening, it was with an unaccustomed soberness of man- 
ner, almost solemnly. 

“It’s done,” he said. 

Razumov, sitting bowed, his clasped hands hanging 
between his knees, shuddered at the familiar sound of 
these words. Kostia deposited slowly in the circle of 
lamplight a small brown-paper parcel tied with a piece 
of string. 

“As I’ve said — all I could lay my hands on. The old 
boy ’ll think the end of the world has come.” 

Razumov nodded from the couch and contemplated 
the hare-brained fellow’s gravity with a feeling of 
malicious pleasure. 

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UNDER WESTERN EYES 


“I’ve made my little sacrifice,” sighed mad Kostia. 
“And I’ve to thank you, Kirylo Sidorovitch, for the 
opportunity.” 

“It has cost you something?” 

“Yes, it has. You see, the dear old duffer really loves 
me. He’ll be hurt.” 

“And you believe all they tell you of the new future 
and the sacred will of the people?” 

“Implicitly. I would give my life . . . Only, you 
see, I am like a pig at the trough. I am no good. It’s 
my nature.” 

Razumov, lost in thought,'had forgotten his existence, 
till the youth’s voice, entreating him to fly without 
loss of time, roused him unpleasantly. 

“All right. Well — good-by.” 

“ I am not going to leave you till I’ve seen you out of 
Petersburg,” declared Kostia, unexpectedly, with calm 
determination. “You can’t refuse me that now. For 
God’s sake, Kirylo, my soul, the police may be here any 
moment, and when they get you they’ll immure you 
somewhere for ages — ^till your hair turns gray. I have 
down there the best trotter of dad’s stables and a light 
sledge. We shall do thirty miles before the moon sets 
and find some roadside station. . . .” 

Razumov looked up amazed. The journey was de- 
cided — unavoidable. He had fixed the next day for his 
departure — on the mission. And now he discovered 
suddenly that he had not believed in it. He had 
gone about listening, speaking, thinking, planning his 
simulated flight, with the growing conviction that all 
this was preposterous. As if anybody ever did such 
things! It was like a game of make-believe. And now 
he was amazed ! Here was somebody who believed in it 
with desperate earnestness. “If I don’t go now, at 
once,” thought Razumov, with a start of fear, “I shall 
never go.” He rose without a word, and the anxious 
Kostia thrust his cap on him, helped him into his cloak — 

310 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


or else he would have left the room bareheaded, as he 
stood. He was walking out silently when a sharp cry 
arrested him. 

“Kirylo!’’ 

“What?” He turned reluctantly in the doorway. 
Upright, with a stiffly extended arm, Kostia, his face set 
and white, was pointing an eloquent forefinger at the 
brown little packet lying forgotten in the circle of bright 
light on the table. Razumov hesitated, came back for 
it under the severe eyes of his companion, at whom he 
tried to smile. But the boyish, mad youth was frown- 
ing. “It’s a dream,” thought Razumov, putting the 
little parcel into his pocket and descending the stairs. 
“Nobody does such things.” The other held him under 
the arm, whispering of dangers ahead and of what he 
meant to do in certain contingencies! “Preposterous,” 
murmured Razumov, as he was being tucked up in 
the sledge. He gave himself up to watching the de- 
velopment of the dream with extreme attention. It 
continued on foreseen lines, inexorably logical — ^the long 
drive, the wait at the small station sitting by a stove. 
They did not exchange half a dozen words altogether. 
Kostia, gloomy himself, did not care to break the 
silence. At parting they embraced twice — it had 
to be done; and then Kostia vanished out of the 
dream. 

When dawn broke Razumov, very still in a hot, stuffy 
railway-car full of bedding and of sleeping people in all 
its dimly lighted length, rose quietly, lowered the glass 
a few inches, and flung out on the great plain of snow a 
small brown -paper parcel. Then he sat down again, 
muffled up and motionless. “For the people,” he 
thought, staring out of the window. The great white 
desert of frozen, hard earth glided past his eyes without 
a sign of life. 

That had been a waking act, and then the dream had 
him again — Prussia, Saxony, Wiirttemberg, faces, sights, 

21 311 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


words — all a dream observed with an angry, compelled 
attention. Zurich, Geneva — still a dream, minutely 
followed, wearing one into harsh laughter, to fury, to 
death — with the fear of awakening at the end. . . . 


II 


“ T^ERHAPS life is just that,’* reflected Razumov, 
1 pacing to 'and fro under the trees of the little 
island all alone with the bronze statue of Rousseau. “A 
dream and a fear.” The dusk deepened. The pages 
written over and torn out of his note-book were the first 
fruit of his “mission.” No dream, that. They con- 
tained the assurance that he was on the eve of real dis- 
coveries. “I think there is no longer anything in the 
way of my being completely accepted.” 

He had resumed his impressions in those pages, some 
of the conversations. He even went so far as to write: 
“By-the-by, I have discovered the personality of that 
terrible N. N. A horrible, paunchy brute. If I hear any- 
thing of his future movements I shall send a warning.” 

The futility of all this overcame him like a curse. 
Even then he could not believe in the reality of his 
“mission.” He looked round despairingly as if for some 
way to redeem his existence from that unconquerable 
feeling. He crushed angrily in his hand the pages of 
the note-book. “ This must 'be posted,” he thought. 

He gained the bridge and returned to the north shore, 
where he remembered having seen in one of the narrower 
streets a little, obscure shop stocked with cheap wood 
carvings, its walls lined with extremely dirty cardboard- 
bound volumes of a small circulating library. They sold 
stationery there, too. A morose, shabby old man dozed 
behind the counter. A thin woman in black, with a 
sickly face, produced the envelope he had asked for 
without even looking at him. Razumov thought that 

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UNDER WESTERN EYES 


these people were safe to deal with because they no 
longer cared for anything in the world. He addressed 
the envelope on the counter with the German name of a 
certain person living in Vienna. But Razumov knew 
that this, his first communication for Councilor Mikulin 
would find its way to the Embassy there, be copied in 
cipher by somebody trustworthy, and sent on to its 
destination all safe along with the diplomatic correspond- 
ence. That was the arrangement contrived to cover up 
the track of the information from all unfaithful eyes, 
from all indiscretions, from all mishaps and treacheries. 
It was to make him safe — absolutely safe. 

He wandered out of the wretched shop and made for 
the post-office. It was then that I saw him for the 
second time that day. He was crossing the Rue Mont- 
blanc with every appearance of an aimless stroller. 
He did not recognize me, but I made him out at some 
distance. He was very good-looking, I thought, this re- 
markable friend of Miss Haldin’s brother. I watched 
him go up to the letter-box and then retrace his steps. 
Again he passed me very close, but I am certain he did 
not see me that time, either. He carried his head well 
up, but he had the expression of a somnambulist strug- 
gling with the very dream which drives him forth to 
wander in dangerous places. My thought reverted to 
Nathalie Haldin, to her mother, to whom he seemed to be 
all that was left of their son and brother. 

The westerner in me was discomposed. There was 
something shocking in the expression of that face. Had 
I been myself a conspirator, a Russian political refugee, 
I could have perhaps been able to draw some practical 
conclusion from this chance glimpse. As it was, it only 
discomposed me strongly, even to the extent of awaken- 
ing an indefinite apprehension in regard to Nathalie 
Haldin. All this is rather inexplicable, but such was 
the origin of the purpose I formed there and then to call 
on these ladies in the evening, after my solitary dinner. 

314 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 

It was true that I had met Miss Haldin only a few hours 
before, but Mrs. Haldin herself I had not seen for some 
considerable time. The truth is, I had shirked calling of 
late. 

Poor Mrs. Haldin! I confess she frightened me a 
little. She was one of those natures, rare enough, luck- 
ily, in which one cannot help being interested, be- 
cause they provoke both terror and pity. One dreads 
their contact for one’s self and still more for those one 
cares for, so clear it is that they are born to suffer and 
to make others sufiEer, too. It is strange to think that, 
I won’t say liberty, but the mere liberalism of outlook 
which for us is a matter of words, of ambitions, of votes 
(and, if of feeling at all, then of the sort of feeling which 
leaves our deepest affections untouched), may be for 
other beings very much like ourselves, and living under 
the same sky a heavy, trial of fortitude, a matter of tears 
and anguish and blood. Mrs. Haldin had felt the pangs 
of her own generation. There was that enthusiast 
brother of hers — ^the officer they shot under Nicholas. 
A faintly ironic resignation is no armor for a vulnerable 
heart. Mrs. Haldin, struck at through her children, was 
bound to suffer afresh from the past and to feel the 
anguish of the future. She was of those who do not 
know how to heal themselves; of those who are too 
much aware of their heart; who, neither cowardly nor 
selfish, look passionately at its wounds — and count the 
cost. 

Such thoughts as these seasoned my modest, lonely 
bachelor’s meal. If anybody wishes to remark that this 
was a roundabout way of thinking of Nathalie Haldin, I 
can only retort that she was well worth some concern. 
She had all her life before her. Let it be admitted, then, 
that I was thinking of Nathalie Haldin’s life in terms of 
her mother's character, a ihanner of thinking of a girl 
permissible for an old man, not too old yet to have be- 
come a stranger to pity. There was almost all her 

315 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


youth before her; a youth robbed arbitrarily of its 
natural lightness and joy, overshadowed by an un- 
European despotism; a terribly somber youth given 
over to the hazards of a furious strife between equally 
ferocious antagonisms. 

I lingered over my thoughts more than I should have 
done. One felt so helpless, and even worse — so unre- 
lated in a way. At the last moment I hesitated as to 
going there at all. What was the good ? 

All this made me late, and the evening was already 
advanced when, turning into the Boulevard des Philo- 
sophes, I saw the light in the window at the corner. The 
blind was down, but I could imagine behind it Mrs. 
Haldin seated in the chair, in her usual attitude, as if 
looking out for some one, which had lately acquired 
the poignant quality of a mad expectation. 

I thought that I was sufficiently authorized by the 
light to knock at the door. The ladies had not retired as 
yet ; I only hoped they would not have any visitors of 
their own nationality. A broken-down retired Russian 
official was to be found there sometimes in the evening. 
He was infinitely forlorn and wearisome by his mere dis- 
mal presence. I think these ladies tolerated his frequent 
visits because of an ancient friendship with Mr. Haldin, 
the father, or something of that sort. I made up my 
mind that if I found him prosing away there in his feeble 
voice I should remain but a very few minutes. 

The door surprised me by swinging open before I could 
ring the bell. I was confronted by Miss Haldin in hat 
and jacket, obviously on the point of going out. At that 
hour! For the doctor, perhaps? 

Her exclamation of welcome reassured me. It 
sounded as if I had been the very man she wanted to see. 
My curiosity was awakened. She drew me in, and the 
faithful Anna, the elderly German maid, closed the 
door, but did not go away afterward. She remained 
near it as if in readiness to let me out presently. It ap- 
316 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


peared that Miss Haldin had been on the point of going 
out to find me. 

She spoke in a hurried manner, very unusual with her. 
She would have gone straight and rung at Mrs. Ziegler's 
door, late as it was, for Mrs. Ziegler’s habits . . . 

Mrs. Ziegler, the widow of a distinguished professoi 
who was an intimate friend of mine, lets me have 
three rooms out of her very large and fine apartment, 
which she didn’t give up after her husband’s death; 
but I have my own entrance, opening on the same land- 
ing. It was an arrangement of at least ten years’ stand- 
ing. I said that I was very glad that I had the idea 
to . . . 

Miss Haldin made no motion to take off her outdoor 
things. I observed her heightened color, something 
pronouncedly resolute in her tone. Did I know where 
Mr. Razumov lived? 

Where Mr. Razumov lived! Mr. Razumov! At this 
hour — so urgently ! I threw my arms up in sign of utter 
ignorance. I had not the slightest idea where he lived. 
If I could have foreseen her question only three hours 
ago I might have ventured to ask him, on the pavement 
before the new post-office building, and, possibly, he 
M^ould have told me; but very possibly, too, he would 
have dismissed me rudely to mind my own business. 
And possibly, I thought, remembering that extraor- 
dinary hallucined, anguished, and absent expression, he 
might have fallen down in a fit from the shock of being 
spoken to. I said nothing of all this to Miss Haldin, not 
even mentioning that I had a glimpse of the young man 
so recently. The impression had been so extremely un- 
pleasant that I would have been glad to forget it my- 
self. 

“I don’t see where I could make inquiries,” I mur- 
mured, helplessly. I would have been glad to be of 
use in any way and would have set off to fetch any man, 
young or old, for I had the greatest confidence in her 

317 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


common sense. “What made you think of coming to 
me for that information?” I asked. 

“It wasn’t exactly for that,” she said, in a low voice. 
She had the air of some one confronted by an unpleasant 
task, 

“Am I to understand that you must communicate 
with Mr. Razumov this evening?” 

Nathalie Haldin moved her head affirmatively, then, 
after a glance at the door of the drawing-room, said, 
in French: 

''C'est maman,” and remained perplexed for a mo- 
ment, always serious, not a girl to be put out by any 
imaginary difficulties. My curiosity was suspended on 
her lips, which remained closed for a moment. What 
was Mr. Razumov’s connection with this mention of her 
mother? Mrs. Haldin had not been informed of her 
son’s friend’s arrival in Geneva. 

“May I hope to see your mother this evening?” I 
inquired. 

Miss Haldin extended her hand as if to bar the way. 

“She is in a terrible state of agitation. Oh, you 
would not be able to detect . . . It’s inward, but I, who 
know mother, I am appalled. I haven’t the courage to 
face it any longer. It’s all my fault; I suppose I cannot 
play a part; I’ve never before hidden anything from 
mother. There has never been an occasion for anything 
of that sort between us. But you know, yourself, the 
reason why I refrained from telling her at once of Mr. 
Razumov’s arrival here. You understand, don’t you? 
Owing to her unhappy state. And — there — ! I am no 
actress. My own feelings being strongly engaged, I 
somehow ... I don’t know. She noticed something in 
my manner. She thought I was concealing something 
from her. She noticed my longer absences, and, in fact, 
as I have been meeting Mr. Razumov daily, I used to 
stay away longer than usual when I went out. Goodness 
knows what suspicions arose in her mind. You know 
318 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


that she has not been herself ever since. ... So this 
evening she — ^who has been so a'wfully silent for weeks — 
began to talk all at once. She said that she did not want 
to reproach me ; that I had my character as she had her 
own; that she did not want to pry into my affairs or 
even into my thoughts; for her part, she had never had 
anything to conceal from her children . . . cruel things 
to listen to. And all this in her quiet voice, with that 
poor wasted face as calm as a stone. It was unbearable. 

Miss Haldin talked in an undertone and more rapidly 
than I had ever heard her speak before. That in itself 
was disturbing. The anteroom being strongly lighted, I 
could see under the veil the heightened color of her 
face. She stood erect, her left hand was resting light- 
ly on a small table. The other hung by her side 
without stirring. Now and then she caught her breath 
slightly. 

“ It was too startling. Just fancy! She thought that 
I was making preparations to leave her without saying 
anything. I knelt by the side of her chair and entreated 
her to think of what she was saying! She put her hand 
on my head, but she persisted in her delusion all the 
same. She had always thought that she was worthy of 
her children’s confidence, but apparently it was not so. 
Her son could not trust her love if not her understanding 
— and now I was planning to abandon her in the same 
cruel and unjust manner, and so on, and so on. Noth- 
ing I could say ... It is morbid obstinacy. . . . She 
said that she felt there was something, some change in 
me. ... If my convictions were calling me away, why 
this secrecy, as though she had been a coward or a 
weakling not safe to trust ? ‘ As if my heart could play 

traitor to my children,’ she said. ... It was hardly to 
be borne. And she was smoothing my head all the 
time. ... It was perfectly useless to protest. She is 
ill. Her very soul is . . .” 

I did not venture to break the silence which fell be- 

319 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


tween us. I looked into her eyes, glistening through the 
veil. 

“I! Changed!” she exclaimed in the same low tone. 
“My convictions calling me away! It was cruel to 
hear this, because my trouble is that I am weak and 
cannot see what I ought to do. You know that. And 
to end it all I did a selfish thing. To remove her sus- 
picions of myself I told her of Mr. Razumov. It was self- 
ish of me. You know we were completely right in agree- 
ing to keep the knowledge away from her. Perfectly 
right. Directly I told her of our poor Victor’s friend 
being here, I saw how right we have been. She ought to 
have been prepared; but in my distress I just blurted it 
out. Mother got terribly excited at once. How long 
has he been here ? What did he know, and why did he 
not come to see us at once, this friend of her Victor? 
What did that mean ? Was she not to be trusted even 
with such memories as there were left of her son? . . . 
Just think how I felt seeing her white like a sheet, per- 
fectly motionless, with her thin hands gripping the arms 
of the chair. I told her it was all my fault.” 

I could imagine the motionless, dumb figure of the 
mother in her chair, there, behind the door near which the 
daughter was talking to me. The silence in there 
seemed to call aloud for vengeance against a historical 
fact and the modern instances of its working. That 
view flashed through my mind, but I could not doubt 
that Miss Haldin had had an atrocious time of it. I 
quite understood when she said that she could not face 
the night upon the impression of that scene. Mrs. 
Haldin had given way to most awful imaginings, to most 
fantastic and cruel suspicions. All this had to be lulled 
at all costs and without loss of time. It was no shock to 
me to learn that Miss Haldin had said to her “ I will go, 
and bring him here at once.” There was nothing absurd 
in that cry, no exaggeration of sentiment. I was not 
even doubtful in my “Very well, but how?” 

320 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


It was perfectly right that she should think of me, but 
what could I do in my ignorance of Mr. Razumov’s 
quarters ? 

“And to think he may be living near by, within a 
stone's-throw perhaps,” she exclaimed. 

I doubted it ; but I would have gone off cheerfully to 
fetch him from the other end of Geneva. I supposed she 
was certain of my readiness, since her first thought was to 
come to me. But the service she meant to ask of me 
really was to accompany her to the Chateau Borel. 

I had an unpleasant mental vision of the dark road, 
of the somber grounds, and the desolately suspicious 
aspect of that home of necromancy and intrigue and 

feminist adoration. I objected that Mme. de S 

most likely would know nothing of what we wanted 
to find out. Neither did I think it likely that the 
young man would be found there. I remembered my 
glimpse of his face, and somehow gained the conviction 
that a man who looked worse than if he had seen the 
dead would want to shut himself up somewhere where 
he could be alone. I felt a strange certitude that Mr. 
Razumov was going home when I saw him. 

“It is really of Peter Ivanovitch that I was thinking,” 
said Miss Haldin, quietly. 

Ah! He, of course, would know. I looked at my 
watch. It was twenty minutes past nine only. . . . 
Still. 

“I would try his hotel then,” I advised. “He has 
rooms at the Cosmopolitan somewhere on the top floor.” 

I did not offer to go by myself simply from mistrust of 
the reception I should meet with. But I suggested the 
faithful Anna, with a note asking for the information. 

Anna was still waiting by the door at the other end 
of the room, and we two discussed the matter in 
whispers. Miss Haldin thought she most go herself. 
Anna was timid and slow. Time would be lost in bring- 
ing back the answer; and from that point of view it was 

321 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


getting late, for it was by no means certain that Mr. 
Razumov lived near by. 

“If I go myself,’* Miss Haldin argued, “I can go 
straight to him from the hotel. And, in any case, I 
should have to go out because I must explain to Mr. 
Razumov personally — prepare him, in a way. You 
have no idea of mother’s state of mind.” 

Her color came and went. She even thought that 
both for her mother’s sake and for her own it was better 
that they should not be together for a little time. Anna, 
whom her mother liked, would be at hand. 

“She could even take her sewing into the room 
Mother won’t mind,” Miss Haldin continued as I fol- 
lowed her to the door. Then, addressing in German the 
maid who opened it before us: “You may tell my 
mother that this gentleman called and is gone with me 
to find Mr. Razumov. She must not be uneasy if I am 
away for some length of time.” 

We passed out quickly at the big house-door, and she 
took deep breaths of the cool night air. “ I did not even 
ask you,” she murmured. 

“I should think not,” I said, with a laugh. The man- 
ner of my reception by the great feminist could not be 
considered now. That he would be annoyed to see me, 
and probably treat me to some solemn insolence, I had 
no doubt, but I supposed that he would not absolutely 
dare to throw me out. And that was all I cared for. 
“Won’t you take my arm?” I asked. 

She did so without a word, and neither of us spoke till 
I let her go first into the great hall of the hotel. It was 
brilliantly lighted and with a good many people lounging 
about. 

“I could very well go up there without you,” I sug- 
gested. 

“ I don’t like to be left waiting in this place,” she said, 
in a low voice. “I will come, too.” 

I led her straight to the lift then. At the top floor the 
322 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 

attendant directed us to the right: “End of the cor- 
ridor.” 

, The walls were white, the carpet red, electric lights 
blazed in profusion, and the emptiness, the silence, the 
closed doors, all alike and numbered, made me think of 
the perfect order of some severely luxurious model pen- 
itentiary on the solitary - confinement principle. Up 
there .under the roof of that enorm€>us pile for housing 
travelers no sound of any kind reached us, the thick 
crimson felt muffled our footsteps completely. We 
hastened on, not looking at each other till we found our- 
selves before the very last door of that long passage. 
Then our eyes met and we stood thus for a moment lend- 
ing ear to a faint murmur of voices inside. 

“I suppose this is it,” I whispered, unnecessarily. I 
saw Miss Haldin’s lips move soundlessly, and after my 
sharp knock the murmur of voices inside ceased. A pro- 
found stillness lasted for a few seconds, and then the door 
was brusquely opened by a short, black-eyed woman in a 
red blouse, with a great lot of nearly white hair done up 
negligently in an untidy and picturesque manner. Her 
thin, jetty eyebrows were drawn together. I learned 
afterward with interest that she was the famous — or the 
notorious — Sophia Antonovna, but I was struck then by 
the quaint Mephistophelian character of her inquiring 
glance, because it was so curiously evilless, so — I may 
say — undevilish. It got softened still more as she 
looked up at Miss Haldin, who stated in her gentle, 
even voice her wish to see Peter Ivanovitch for a 
moment. 

“I am Miss Haldin,” she added. 

At this, with her brow completely smoothed out now, 
but without a word in answer, the woman in the red 
blouse walked away to a sofa and sat down, leaving the 
door wide open. 

And from the sofa, her hands lying on her lap, she 
watched us enter with her black, glittering eyes. 

323 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


Miss Haldin advanced into the middle of the room; I, 
faithful to my part of mere attendant, remained by the 
door after closing it behind me. The room, quite a 
large one, but with a low: ceiling, was scantily furnished, 
and an electric bulb with a porcelain shade pulled low 
down over a big table (with a very large map spread on 
it) left its distant parts in a dim, artificial twilight. 
Peter Ivanovitch was not to be seen, neither was Mr. 
Razumov present. But on the sofa, near Sophia Anto- 
novna, a bony-faced man with a goatee beard leaned 
forward with his hands on his knees, staring frankly with 
faded, kindly eyes. In a remote comer a bulky shape 
and a broad, pale face could be made out, uncouth and 
as if insecure on the low seat on which it rested. The 
only person known to me was little Julius Laspara, who 
seemed to have been poring over the map with his feet 
twined tightly round the chair -legs. He got down 
briskly and bowed to Miss Haldin, looking absurdly like 
a small, hook-nosed boy with a beautiful false pepper- 
and-salt beard. He advanced, offering his seat, which 
Miss Haldin declined. She had only come in for a 
moment to say a few words to Peter Ivanovitch. 

His high-pitched voice became painfully accented in 
the room. 

“Strangely enough, I was thinking of you this very 
afternoon, Natalia Viktorovna. I met Mr. Razumov. 
I asked him to write me an article on anything he 
liked. You could translate it into English — with such 
a teacher.” 

He nodded complimentarily in my direction. At the 
name of Razumov an indescribable sound, a sort of 
feeble squeak, as of some angry small animal, was heard 
in the corner occupied by the man who seemed much too 
bulky for the cnair on which he sat. I did not hear what 
Miss Haldin said. It was Laspara who spoke again. 

“It’s time to do something, Natalia Viktorovna. But 
I suppose you have your own ideas. Why not write 

324 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


something yourself ? Suppose you come to see us soon ? 
We could talk it over. Any advice ...” 

Again I did not catch Miss Haldin’s words. It was 
Laspara’s voice once more. 

“Peter Ivanovitch? He’s retired for a moment into 
the other room. We are all waiting for him.” 

The great man, entering at that moment, looked 
bigger, taller, quite imposing in a long dressing-gown of 
some dark stuff. It descended in straight lines down to 
his feet. He suggested a monk or a prophet, a robust 
figure of some desert-dweller — something Asiatic; and 
the dark glasses in conjunction with this costume made 
him more mysterious than ever in that subdued light. 

Little Laspara went back to his chair to look at the 
map, the only brilliantly lighted object in the room. 
Even from my distant position by the door, I could make 
out, mainly by the shape of the blue part representing 
the water, that it was a map of the Baltic provinces. 
Peter Ivanovitch exclaimed slightly, advancing toward 
Miss Haldin, checked himself on perceiving me, very 
vaguely no doubt, and peered with his dark-bespectacled 
stare. He must have recognized me by my gray hair, 
because, with a marked shrug of his broad shoulders, he 
turned to Miss Haldin in benevolent indulgence. He 
seized her hand and put his other big paw like a lid 
over it. 

While those two, standing in the middle of the floor, 
were exchanging a few inaudible phrases, no one else 
moved in the room; Laspara, with his back to us, kneel- 
ing on the chair, his elbows propped on the big scale map, 
the shadowy enormity in the corner, the frankly staring 
man with the goatee on the sofa, the woman in the red 
blouse by his side — not one of them stirred. I suppose 
that really they had no time, for Miss Haldin withdrew 
her hand immediately, and before I was ready for her 
was moving to the door. A disregarded westerner, I 
threw it open hurriedly and followed her out, my last 

325 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


glance, as I was closing the door, leaving them all mo- 
tionless in their varied poses. Peter Ivanovitch alone 
standing up, with his dark glasses like an enormous blind 
teacher, and behind him the vivid patch of light of the 
colored map, pored over by the diminutive Laspara. 

Later on, much later on, at the time of the newspaper 
rumors (they were vague and soon died out) of an abor- 
tive military conspiracy in Russia, I remembered the 
glimpse I had of that motionless group with its central 
figure. Planned as an attempt to seize power, it was to 
break out at a great review. No details ever came out, 
but it was known that the revolutionary parties abroad 
had given their assistance, had sent emissaries in ad- 
vance, that even money was found to despatch a 
steamer with a cargo of arms and conspirators to in- 
vade the Baltic provinces. And while my eyes scanned 
the imperfect disclosures (in which the world was not 
much interested) I thought that the old settled Europe 
had been given in my person attending that Russian 
girl something like a glimpse behind the scenes. A short, 
strange glimpse on the top floor of a great hotel, of 
all places in the world : the great man himself, the mo- 
tionless great bulk in the corner of the slayer of spies 
and gendarmes, Yakovlitch, the veteran of ancient 
terrorist campaigns; the woman with her hair as white 
as mine and the lively black eyes all in a mysterious 
half-light, with the strongly lighted map of Russia on 
the table. The woman I had the opportunity to see 
again. As we were waiting for the lift she came hurry- 
ing along the corridor, with her eyes fastened on Miss 
Haldin’s face, and drew her aside as if for a confiden- 
tial communication. It was not long. A few words 
only. 

Going down in the lift, Nathalie Haldin did not break 
the silence. It was only when out of the hotel and as we 
moved along the quay in the fresh darkness spangled by 
the quay lights, reflected in the black water of the little 

326 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


port on our left hand, and with lofty piles of hotels on our 
right, that she spoke. 

“That was Sophia Antonovna — you know the 
woman ...” 

“Yes. I know — ^the famous . . .” 

“The same. It appears that after we went out Petei 
Ivanovitch told them why I had come. That was the 
reason she came out after us. She named herself to me, 
and then she said : ‘ You are the sister of a brave man who 
shall be remembered. You may see better times.’ I 
told her I hoped to see the time when all this would be 
forgotten, even if the name of my brother were to be 
forgotten, too. Something moved me to say that, but 
you understand?” 

“Yes,” I said. “You think of the era of concord and 
justice. The destructors should be anonymous.” 

“Yes. There is too much hate and revenge in that 
work. It must be done. It is a sacrifice — and so let it be 
all the greater. Destruction is the work of anger. Let 
the tyrants and the slayers be forgotten together and 
only the reconstructors be remembered.” 

“ And did Sophia Antonovna agree with you ?” I asked, 
skeptically. 

“She did not say anything except, * It is good for you 
to believe in love.’ I should think she understood me. 
Then she asked me if I hoped to see Mr. Razumov 
presently. I said I trusted I could manage to bring 
him to see my mother this evening, as my mother has 
learned of his being here and is morbidly impatient 
to learn if he could tell us something of Victor. He was 
the only friend of my brother we knew of and a great 
intimate. She said : ‘ Oh ! your brother — yes. Please tell 
Mr. Razumov that I have made known the story which 
came to me from St. Petersburg. It concerns your 
brother’s arrest,’ she added. ‘He was betrayed by a 
man of the people who has since hanged himself. Mr. 
Razumov will explain it all to you. I gave him the 
22 327 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


full information this afternoon. And please tell Mr. 
Razumov that Sophia Antonovna sends him her greet- 
ings. I am going away early in the morning — far away.’ ” 

And Miss Haldin added, after a moment of silence: 

“I was so moved by what I heard so unexpectedly 
that I simply could not speak to you before. ... A 
man of the people! Oh, our poor people!” 

She walked slowly, as if tired out suddenly, her head 
drooped; from the windows of a building with terraces 
and balconies came the banal sound of hotel music. 
Before the low, mean portals of the Casino two red 
posters blazed under the electric lamps, with a cheap, 
provincial effect. And the emptiness of the quays, the 
desert aspect of the streets, had an air of hypocritical 
respectability and of inexpressible dreariness. 

I had taken for granted she had obtained the address 
and let myself be guided by her. On the Mont Blanc 
bridge, where a few dark figures seemed lost in the wide 
and long perspective defined by the lights, she said: 

” It isn’t very far from our house. I somehow thought 
it couldn’t be. The address is Rue du Carouge. I think 
it must be one of those big, new houses for artisans.” 

She took my arm confidingly, familiarly, and acceler- 
ated her pace. There was something primitive in all 
her proceedings. She did not think of the resources of 
civilization. A late tram-car overtook us; a row of 
fiacres stood by the railing of the gardens. It never 
entered her head to make use of these conveyances. 
Neither did it enter mine. She was too hurried, per- 
haps, and, as to myself — well, she had taken my arm 
confidingly. As we were ascending the easy incline of 
the Corraterie, all the shops shuttered and no light in any 
of the windows (as if all the mercenary population had 
fled at the end of the day), she said, tentatively: 

“I could run in for a moment to have a look at 
mother. It would not be much out of the way.” 

I dissuaded her. If Mrs. Haldin really expected to 
328 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


see Razumov that night, it would have been unwise to 
show herself without him. The sooner we got hold of 
the young man and brought him along to calm her 
mother’s agitation the better. She assented to my rea- 
soning, and we crossed diagonally the Place de Theatre, 
all gray with its floor of slabs of stone under the electric 
lamps, and the lonely equestrian statue all black in the 
middle. In the Rue du Carouge we were in the poorer 
quarters, and approaching the outskirts of the town. 
Vacant building-plots alternated with high, new houses. 
At the corner of a side street, cutting its unpaved road- 
way through a dark wilderness of waste ground, the 
crude light of a whitewashed shop fell into the night, 
fanlike, through a wide doorway. One could see from 
a distance the inner wall, with its scantily furnished 
shelves and the deal counter painted brown. That 
was the house. Approaching it along the dark stretch of 
a fence of tarred planks, we saw the narrow, pallid face 
of the cut angle, five windows high, without a gleam in 
them and crowned by the heavy shadow of a jutting roof 
slope. 

“We must inquire in the shop,” Miss Haldin directed 
me. 

A sallow, thinly whiskered man, wearing a dingy white 
collar and a frayed tie, laid down a black, smudgy news- 
paper and, leaning familiarly on both elbows far over the 
bare counter, answered that the person I was inquiring 
for was indeed his locataire on the third floor, but that 
for the moment he was out. 

“For the moment,” I repeated, after a glance at Miss 
Haldin. “Does that mean that you expect him back 
at once?” 

He was very gentle, with ingratiating eyes and soft 
lips. He smiled faintly, as though he knew all about 
everything. Mr. Razumov, after being absent all day, 
had returned early in the evening. He was very sur- 
prised about half an hour or a little more since to see 

329 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


him come down again. Mr. Razumov left his key, and, 
in the course of some words which passed between them, 
had remarked that he was going out because he needed 
air. 

From behind the bare counter he went on smiling at 
us, his head held between his hands. Air. Air. But 
whether that meant a long or a short absence it was 
difficult to say. The night was very close, certainly. 

After a pause, his ingratiating eyes turned to the door, 
he added : 

“The storm shall drive him in.” 

“There’s going to be a storm?” I asked. 

“Why, yes.” 

As if to confirm his words we heard a very distant, 
deep, rumbling noise. 

Consulting Miss Haldin by a glance, I saw her so re- 
luctant to give up her quest that I asked the shopkeeper 
in case Mr. Razumov came home within half an hour 
to beg him to remain down-stairs in the shop. We would 
look in again presently. 

For all answer he moved his head imperceptibly. The 
approval of Miss Haldin was expressed by her silence. 
We walked slowly down the street, away from the town; 
the low garden walls of the modest villas, doomed to 
demolition, were overhung by the boughs of trees and 
masses of foliage, lighted from below by gas-lamps. The 
violent and monotonous noise of the icy Arve falling over 
a low dam swept toward us with a chilly draught of air 
over a great open space, where a double line of lamp- 
lights defined a street as yet without houses. But on the 
other shore, overhung by the thunder-cloud, a solitary 
dim light, low in the complete darkness, seemed to watch 
us with a steady stare. When we had strolled as far as 
the bridge, I said : 

“We had better get back. . . .” 

In the shop the sickly man was studying the smudgy 
newspaper, now spread out largely on the counter. He 

330 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


just raised his head when I looked in and shook it nega- 
tively, pursing his lips. I rejoined Miss Haldin outside 
at once and we moved off at a brisk pace. She remarked 
that she would send Anna with a note the first thing in 
the morning. I respected her taciturnity, silence being, 
perhaps, the best way to show my concern. 

The semi-rural street we followed on our return 
changed gradually to the usual town thoroughfare, 
broad and deserted. We did not meet four people al- 
together, and the way seemed interminable, because my 
companion’s natural anxiety had communicated itself 
sympathetically to me. At last we turned into the 
Boulevard des Philosophes, more wide, more empty, 
more dead — ^the very desolation of slumbering respecta- 
bility. At the sight of the two lighted windows, very 
conspicuous from afar, I had the mental vision of Mrs. 
Haldin in her arm-chair keeping a dreadful, tormenting 
vigil under the evil spell of an arbitrary rule, a victim of 
tyranny and revolution, a sight at once cruel and 
absurclo 


Ill 


“ WOU will come in for a moment?’* said Nathalie 

1 Haldin. 

I demurred on account of the late hour. “You know 
mother likes you so much,” she insisted. 

“ I will just come in to hear how your mother is.” 

She said, as if to herself, “I don’t even know whether 
she will believe that I could not find Mr. Razumov, since 
she has taken it into her head that I am concealing some- 
thing from her. You may be able to persuade her. . . .” 

“Your mother may mistrust me, too!” I observed. 

“You! Why? What could you have to conceal from 
her? You are not a Russian nor a conspirator. . . .” 

I felt profoundly my European remoteness, and said 
nothing, but I made up my mind to play my part of 
helpless spectator to the end. The distant rolling of 
thunder in the valley of the Rhone was coming nearer 
to the sleeping town of prosaic virtues and universal 
hospitality. We crossed the street opposite the great 
dark gateway, and Miss Haldin rang at the door of the 
apartment. It was opened almost instantly, as if the 
elderly maid had been waiting in the anteroom for our 
return. Her flat physiognomy had an air of satisfaction. 
The gentleman was there, she declared while closing the 
door. 

Neither of us understood. Miss Haldin turned round 
brusquely to her. “Who?” 

“Herr Razumov,” she explained. 

She had heard enough of our conversation before we 
left to know why her young mistress was going out. 
332 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


Therefore, when the gentleman gave his name at the 
door she admitted him at once. 

“No one could have foreseen that,” Miss Haldin mur- 
mured, with her serious gray eyes fixed upon mine. And, 
remembering the expression of the young man’s face 
seen not much more than four hours ago, the look as of a 
haunted somnambulist, I wondered with a sort of awe. 

“You asked my mother first?” Miss Haldin inquired 
of the maid. 

“No. I announced the gentleman,” she answered, 
surprised at our troubled faces. 

“Still,” I said, in an undertone, “your mother was 
prepared.” 

“Yes. But he has no idea . . .” 

It seemed to me she doubted his tact. To her ques- 
tion how long the gentleman had been with her mother, 
the maid told us that der Herr had been in the drawing- 
room no more than a short quarter of an hour. 

She waited a moment, then withdrew, looking a little 
scared. Miss Haldin gazed at me in silence. 

“As things have turned out,” I said, “you happen to 
know exactly what your brother’s friend has to tell your 
mother. And surely after that . . .” 

“ Yes,” said Nathalie Haldin, slowly. “ I only wonder, 
as I was not there when he came, if it wouldn’t be better 
not to interrupt now.” 

We remained silent, and I suppose we both strained our 
cars, but no sound reached us through the closed door. 
The features of Miss Haldin expressed a painful irreso- 
lution; she made a movement as if to go in, but 
checked herself. She had heard footsteps on the other 
side of the door. It came open, and Razumov, without 
pausing, stepped out into the anteroom. The fatigue of 
that day and the struggle with himself had changed him 
so much that perhaps I would have hesitated to recog- 
nize that face which, only a few hours before, when he 
brushed against me in front of the post-office, had been 
333 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


startling enough but quite different. It had been not 
so livid then, and its eyes not so somber. They certainly 
looked more sane now, but there was upon them the 
shadow of something consciously evil. 

I speak of that because, at first, their glance fell on me, 
though without any sort of recognition or even compre- 
hension. I was simply in the line of his stare. I don’t 
know if he had heard the bell or expected to see anybody. 
He was going out, I believe, and I do not think that he 
saw Miss Haldin till she advanced toward him a step or 
two. He did not notice the hand she put out. 

“ It’s you, Natalia Viktorovna. . . . Perhaps you are sur- 
prised ... at this late hour. But, you see, I remembered 
our conversations in that garden. I thought really it was 
your wish that I should — without loss of time ... so I 
came. No other reason. Simply to tell . . .” 

He spoke with difficulty. I noticed that, and re- 
membered his declaration to the man in the shop that he 
was going out because he “needed air.’’ If that was his 
object, then it was clear that he had miserably failed. 
With downcast eyes and lowered head he made an effort 
to pick up the strangled phrase. 

“To tell what I have heard myself only to-day — 
to-day ...” 

Through the door he had not closed I had a view of 
the drawing-room. It was lighted up only by a shaded 
lamp — Mrs. Haldin’s eyes could not support either gas or 
electricity. It was a comparatively big room, and, in 
contrast with the strongly lighted anteroom, its length 
was lost in semi-transparent gloom backed by heavy 
shadows; and on that ground I saw the fine, motionless 
profile of Mrs. Haldin’s bloodless face, inclined slightly 
forward, with a pale hand resting on the arm of the chair. 

She did not move. With the window before her she 
had no longer that attitude suggesting expectation. 
The blind was down; and outside there was only the 
night sky harboring a thunder-cloud, and the town in- 
334 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 

different and hospitable in its cold, almost scornful 
toleration — a strange town of refuge to which all these 
sorrows and hopes were nothing. Her white head was 
bowed. 

The thought that the real drama of autocracy is not 
played on the great stage of politics came to me as, 
fated to be a spectator, I had this other glimpse behind 
the scenes, something more profound than the words 
and gestures of the public play. I had the certitude 
that this mother, after having heard now all that was 
to be known of her son’s fate, refused in her heart to give 
him up after all. It was more than Rachel’s inconsola- 
ble mourning, it was something deeper, more inacces- 
sible in its frightful tranquillity. Lost in the ill-defined 
mass of the high-backed chair, her white, inclined profile 
suggested the contemplation of something in her lap, 
as though a beloved head were resting there. 

I had this glimpse behind the scenes, and then Miss 
Haldin, passing by the young man, shut the door. It 
was not done without hesitation. For a moment I 
thought that she would go to her mother, but she sent 
in only an anxious glance. Perhaps if Mrs. Haldin had 
moved, . . . but no. There was in the immobility of 
that white profile the dreadful aloofness of suffering 
without remedy. 

Meantime the young man kept his eyes fixed on the 
floor. The thought that he would have to ref)eat the 
story he had told already was intolerable to him. He 
had expected to find the two women together. And 
then, he had said to himself, it would be over for all time 
— for all time. “It’s lucky I don’t believe in another 
world,” he had thought, cynically. 

Alone in his room he had regained a certain measure of 
composure by writing in his secret diary. He was aware 
of the danger of that strange self-indulgence. He al- 
ludes to it himself, but he could not refrain. It calmed 
him — it reconciled him to his existence. He sat there 
335 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


scribbling by the light of a solitary candle till it occurred 
to him that, having heard the explanation of Haldin’s 
arrest as put forward by Sophia Antonovna, it behooved 
him to tell these ladies himself. They were certain to 
hear the tale through some other channel; and then 
his abstention would look strange, not only to the 
mother and sister of Haldin, but to other people also. 
Having come to this conclusion, he did not discover in 
himself any marked reluctance to face the necessity, and 
very soon an anxiety to be done with it began to torment 
him. He looked at his watch. No; it was not abso« 
lutely too late. 

He was calmed by his self-communion; that dread 
which had kept him for days from facing Miss Haldin 
was gone. He felt nothing of it, perhaps simply for the 
reason that now he had a story to tell. It had been 
settled for him; there was nothing to do but to have it 
over and done with. The fact that these were women 
he was going to meet did not trouble him especially. As 
a matter of fact, he did not recognize women as women. 
There had been literally no feminine influence in his life. 
Women were human beings for him and nothing more, 
somewhat in the background, not to be thought of in any 
special way. He simply knew nothing of them in any 
relation; no woman had ever influenced a dream of his, 
taken up a moment of his time, or awakened any of his 
dormant feelings; no thought of woman had enriched 
his life by a touch of amenity, of color, of revery. It 
may be said that, in a manner, he had never seen a 
woman, for even Sophia Antonovna was a conspirator, 
a revolutionist, a dangerous person with whom he must 
be on his guard more than with anybody else — nothing 
more. 

The fifteen minutes with Mrs. Haldin were like the 
revenge of the unknown; that white face, that weak, 
distinct voice,. that head, at first turned to him eagerly, 
then, after a while, bowed again and motionless — in the 

336 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 

dim, still light of the room in which his words, which he 
tried to subdue, resounded so loudly— had troubled him 
like some strange discovery. And there seemed to be a 
secret obstinacy in that sorrow, something he could not 
understand; at any rate, something he had not ex- 
pected. Was it hostile ? But it did not matter. Noth- 
ing could touch him now; in the eyes of revolutionists 
there was now no shadow of his past. The phantom of 
Haldin had been indeed walked over, was left behind, 
lying powerless and passive on the pavement covered 
with snow. And this was the phantom’s mother, con- 
sumed with grief and white as a ghost. He had felt a 
pitying surprise. But that, of course, was of no im- 
portance. Mothers did not matter. He could not shake 
off the poignant impression of that silent, quiet, white- 
haired woman, but a sort of sternness crept into his 
thoughts. These were the consequences. Well, what of 
it? “Am I, then, on a bed of roses?” he had exclaimed 
to himself, sitting at some distance, with his eyes fixed 
upon that figure of sorrow. He had said all he had to 
say to her, and when he had finished she had not ut- 
tered a word. She had turned away her head while he 
was speaking The silence which had fallen on his last 
words had lasted for five minutes or more. What did it 
mean? Before its incomprehensible character he be- 
came conscious of anger in his stern mood, the old anger 
against Haldin reawakened by the contemplation of 
Haldin’s mother. And was it not something like en- 
viousness which gripped his heart as if of a privilege de- 
nied to him alone of all the men that had ever passed 
through this world ? It was the other who had attained 
to repose and yet continued to exist in the affection of 
that mourning old woman, in the thoughts of all these 
people posing for lovers of humanity. It was impos- 
sible to get rid of him. “ It’s myself that I have given up 
to destruction,” thought Razumov. “He has induced 
me to do it. I can’t shake him off.” 

337 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


Alarmed by that discovery, he got up and strode out of 
the silent, dim room with its silent old woman in the 
chair, that mother! He never looked back. It was 
frankly a flight. But on opening the door he saw his 
retreat cut off. There was the sister. He had never 
forgotten the sister, only he had not expected to see her 
then — or ever any more, perhaps. He had looked upon 
her as out of the way, somewhere within, avoided for 
good. Her presence in the anteroom was as unforeseen 
as the apparition of her brother had been. Razumov 
gave a start as though he had discovered himself cleverly 
trapped. He tried to smile, but could not manage it, and 
lowered his eyes. “Must I repeat that silly story now?” 
he asked himself and felt a sinking sensation. Nothing 
solid had passed his lips since the day before, but he was 
not in a state to analyze the origins of his weakness. He 
meant to take up his hat and depart with as few words 
as possible, but Miss Haldin’s swift movement to shut 
the door took him by surprise, He half turned after 
her, but without raising his eyes, passively, just as a 
feather might stir in the disturbed air. The next mo- 
ment she was back in the place she had started from, 
with another half-turn on his part, so that they came 
again into the same relative positions. 

“Yes, yes,” she said, hurriedly. “I am very grateful 
to you, Kirylo Sidorovitch, for coming at once — like this. 

. . . Only I wish I had . . . Did mother tell you?” 

“ I wonder what she could have told me that I did not 
know before,” he said, obviously to himself, but perfectly 
audibly. “ Because I did know it,” he added, louder, as 
if in despair. “I always knew it.” 

He raised his head then. He had such a strong sense 
of Nathalie Haldin’s presence that to look at her he felt 
would be a relief. It was she who had been haunting 
him now. He had suffered that persecution ever since 
she had suddenly appeared before him in the garden of 
the Villa Borel with an extended hand and the name of 
338 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


her brother on her lips. The anteroom contained ^ 
row of hooks on the wall nearest to the outer door, 
while against the wall opposite there stood a small dark 
table and one chair. The paper, bearing a very faint 
design, was all but white. The light of an electric bulb 
high up under the ceiling searched that clear square 
box into its four bare corners, crudely, without shadows 
— a strange stage for an obscure drama. 

“What do you mean?” asked Miss Haldin. “What 
is it that you knew always?” 

He raised to her his face, pale, full of unexpressed suf- 
fering. But that look in his eyes of a dull, absent ob- 
stinacy which struck and surprised everybody he was 
talking to, began to pass away. It was as though he 
were coming to himself in the awakened consciousness 
of that marvelous harmony of feature, of lines, of 
glances, of voice, which made of the girl before him a 
being so rare, outside, and, as it were, above the common 
notion of beauty. He looked at her so long that she 
colored slightly. 

“What is it that you knew?” she repeated, vaguely. 

That time he managed a smile. 

“Indeed, if it had not been for a word of greeting or 
two I would doubt whether your mother is aware at all 
of my existence. You understand?” 

Nathalie Haldin nodded ; her hands moved slightly by 
her side. 

“Yes. Is it not heartbreaking? She has not shed a 
tear yet — ^not a single tear. . . .” 

“Not a tear! And you, Natalia Viktorovna? You 
have been able to cry?” 

“I have. And then I am young enough, Kirylo 
Sidorovitch, to believe in the future. But when I see 
my mother so terribly distracted I almost forget every- 
thing. I ask myself whether one should feel proud — or 
only resigned. We had such a lot of people coming to 
see us. There were utter strangers who wrote, asking 
339 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


for permission to call to present their respects. It was 
impossible to keep our door shut forever. You know 
Peter Ivanovitch himself ... Oh yes, there was much 
sympathy, but there were persons who exulted openly at 
that death. Then, when I was left alone with poor 
mother, all this seemed so wrong in spirit, something not 
worth the price she is paying for it. But directly I heard 
you were here in Geneva, Kirylo Sidorovitch, I felt that 
you were the only person who could assist me ...” 

“In comforting a bereaved mother? Yes!” he broke 
in in a manner which made her open her clear, unsuspect- 
ing eyes. “But there is a question of fitness. Has this 
occurred to you ?” 

There was a breathlessness in his utterance which con- 
trasted with the monstrous hint of mockery in his 
intention. 

“Why!” whispered Nathalie Haldin, with feeling. 
“Who more fit than you?” 

He had a convulsive movement of exasperation but 
controlled himself. 

“ Indeed! Directly you heard I was in Geneva, before 
even seeing me? It is another proof of that confidence 
which . . 

All at once his tone changed, became more incisive 
and more detached. 

“Men are poor creatures, Natalia Viktorovna. They 
have no intuition of sentiment. In order to speak fit- 
tingly to a mother of her lost son one must have had 
some experience of the filial relation. It is not the case 
with me — if you must know the whole truth. Your 
hopes have to deal here with ‘ a breast un warmed by any 
affection,* as the poet says. . . . That does not mean 
it is insensible,” he added, in a lowered tone. 

“lam certain your heart is not unfeeling,” said Miss 
Haldin, softly. 

“No. It is not as hard as a stone,” he went on in 
the same introspective voice, and looking as if his 
S40 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


heart were lying as heavy as a stone in that unwarmed 
breast of which he spoke. “No, not so hard. But how 
to prove what you give me credit for — ah, that’s another 
question. No one has ever expected such a thing from 
me before. No one whom my tenderness would have 
been of any use to. And now you come. You! Now! 
No, Natalia Viktorovna. It’s too late. You come too 
late. You must expect nothing from me.” 

She recoiled from him a little, though he had made no 
movement, no gesture, but as if she had seen some change 
in his face charging his words with the significance of 
some hidden sentiment they shared together. To me, 
the silent spectator, they looked in a moment of sudden 
insight like two people becoming conscious of a spell 
which had been lying on them ever since they first set 
eyes on each other. Had either of them cast a glance, 
then, in my direction, I would have opened the door 
quietly and gone out. But neither did; and I remained, 
every fear of indiscretion lost in the sense of my enor- 
mous remoteness from their captivity within the somber 
horizon of Russian problems, the boundary of their eyes, 
of their feelings, the prison of their souls. 

Frank, courageous. Miss Haldin controlled her voice 
in the midst of her slight trouble. 

“What can this mean?” she asked, as if speaking to 
herself. 

“ It may mean that you have given yourself up to vain 
imaginings, while I have managed to remain among the 
truth of things and the realities of life — our Russian life — 
such as they are.” 

“They are cruel,” she murmured. 

“And ugly. Don’t forget that — and ugly. Look 
where you like. Look near you, here abroad where you 
are, and then look back at home whence you came.” 

“You must look beyond the present.” Her tone had 
an ardent conviction. 

“The blind can do that best. 1 have had the mis- 
341 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


fortune to be born clear-eyed. And if you only knew 
what strange things I have seen! What amazing and 
unexpected apparitions . . . But why talk of all this.'*” 

” On the contrary, I want to talk of all this with you,” 
she protested, with grave serenity. The somber humors 
of her brother’s friend left her unaffected, as though that 
bitterness, that suppressed anger, were the signs of an in- 
dignant rectitude. She saw that he was not an ordinary 
personality, and perhaps she did not want him to be 
other than he appeared to her trustful eyes. “Yes, with 
you especially,” she insisted. “With you, of all the 
Russian people in the world. ...” A faint smile dwelt 
for a moment on her lips. “ I am like poor mother in a 
way. I, too, seem unable to give up our beloved dead, 
who, don’t forget, was all in all to us. I don’t want to 
abuse your sympathy; but you must understand that 
it is in you that we can find all that is left of his generous 
soul.” 

I was looking at him; not a muscle of his face moved 
in the least. And yet, even at the time, I did not suspect 
him of insensibility. It was a sort of rapt expression. 
Then he stirred slightly. 

“You are going, Kirylo Sidorovitch?” she asked. 

“I! Going? Where? Oh yes, but I must tell you 
first . . .” His voice was muffled, and he forced him- 
self to produce it with visible repugnance, as if speech 
were something disgusting or deadly. “That story, you 
know — ^the story I heard this afternoon. . . .” 

“I know the story already,” she said, sadly. 

“You know it! Have you correspondents in Peters- 
burg, too?” 

“No. It’s Sophia Antonovna. I have seen her just 
now. She sends you her greetings. She is going away 
to-morrow.” 

He had lowered at last his fascinated glance; she, too, 
was looking down, and, standing thus before each other 
in the glaring light between the four bare walls, they 
342 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


seemed brought out from the confused immensity of the 
Eastern borders to be exposed cruelly to the observation 
of my Western eyes. And I observed them. There was 
nothing else to do. My existence seemed so utterly for- 
gotten by these two that I dared not now make a move- 
ment. And I thought to myself that, of course, they had 
to come together, the sister and the friend of that dead 
man. The ideas, the hopes, the aspirations, the cause 
of Freedom, expressed in their common affection for 
Victor Haldin, the moral victim of autocracy — all this 
must draw them to each other fatally. Her very igno- 
rance and his loneliness, to which he had alluded so 
strangely, must work to that end. And indeed I saw 
that the work was done already. Of course. It was 
manifest that they must have been thinking of each 
other for a long time before they met. She had the 
letter from that beloved brother kindling her imagination 
by the severe praise attached to that one name; and it 
was impossible to imagine that the two women should 
have been kept out of the intercourse between such 
. intimate political friends. And if he was at all attached 
to that friend, if he had any admiration for his character, 

, it was enough to guide his thoughts to that friend's 
I sister. She was no stranger to him when he saw 
!’ her first; and to see that exceptional girl was enough. 

I The only cause for surprise was his gloomy aloofness 
!: before her clearly expressed welcome. But he was 
young, and, however austere and devoted to his revolu- 
tionary ideals, he was not blind. The period of reserve 
was over; he was coming forward in his own way. I 
could not mistake the significance of this late visit, for 
in what he had to say there was nothing urgent. The 
: true cause dawned upon me — he had discovered that he 
/ needed her — whether he understood it or not — and she, 
, perhaps, was moved by the same feeling. It was the 
I second time that I saw them together, and I knew that 
the next time I would not be there, either remembered 
' 23 343 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


or forgotten. I would have virtually ceased to exist for 
both these young people. 

I made this discovery in a very few moments. Mean- 
time, Nathalie Haldin was telling Razumov briefly of our 
peregrinations from one end of Geneva to the other. 
While speaking, she raised her hands above her head to 
untie her veil, and that movement displayed for an in- 
stant the strength and the grace of her youthful figure, 
clad in the simplest of mourning. In the transparent 
shadow the hat-rim threw on her face, her gray eyes had 
an enticing luster. Her voice with its unfeminine yet 
exquisite timbre was steady, and she spoke quickly, frank, 
unembarrassed. As she justified her action by the mental 
state of her mother, a spasm of pain marred the generously 
confiding harmony of her features. I perceived that 
with his downcast eyes he had the air of a man who is 
listening to a strain of music rather than to articulated 
speech. And in the same way, after she had ceased, 
he seemed to listen, yet motionless as if under the 
spell of suggestive sound. He came to himself, mut- 
tering : 

“Yes, yes. She had not shed a tear. She did not 
seem to hear what I was saying. I might have told her 
anything. She looked as if no longer belonging to this 
world.” 

Miss Haldin gave signs of profound distress. Her 
voice faltered. “You don’t know how bad it has come 
to be. She expects now to see him!” The veil dropped 
from her fingers and she clasped her hands in anguish. 
“ It shall end by her seeing him,” she cried. 

Razumov raised his head sharply and attached on her 
a prolonged, thoughtful glance. 

“H’m. That’s very possible,” he muttered, in a 
peculiar tone, as if giving his opinion on a matter of fact. 
“I wonder what ...” He checked himself. 

“That would be the end. Her mind shall be gone 
then, and her spirit will follow.” 

344 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 

Miss Haldin unclasped her hands and let them fall by 
her side. 

“You think so?’' he queried, profoundly. Miss Hal- 
din’s lips were slightly parted. Something unexpected 
and unfathomable in that young man’s character had 
fascinated her from the first. “No! There’s neither 
truth nor consolation to be got from the phantoms of 
the dead,’’ he added, after a weighty pause. “I might 
have told her something true; for instance, that your 
brother meant to save his life — to escape. There can be 
no doubt of that. But I did not.” 

“You did not! But why?” 

“ I don’t know. Other thoughts came into my head,” 
he answered. He seemed to me to be watching himself 
inwardly, as though he were trying to count his own 
heart-beats while his eyes never for a moment left the 
face of the girl. “ You were not there,” he continued. 
“I had made up my mind never to see you again.” 

This seemed to take her breath away for a moment. 

“You . . . How is it possible?” 

“You may well ask. . . . However, I think that I re- 
frained from telling your mother from prudence. I 
might have assured her that in the last conversation he 
held as a free man he mentioned you both. ...” 

“That last conversation was with you,” she struck in, 
in her deep, moving voice. “ Some day you must . . .” 

“ It was with me. Of you he said that you had trust- 
ful eyes. And why I have not been able to forget that 
phrase I don’t know. It meant that there is in you no 
guile, no deception, no falsehood, no suspicion — nothing 
in your heart that could give you a conception of a liv- 
ing, acting, speaking lie if ever it came in your way. 
That you were a predestined victim. . . . What a devil- 
ish suggestion!” 

The convulsive, uncontrolled tone of the last words 
disclosed the precarious hold he had over himself. It 
was like a man defying his own dizziness in high places 
345 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


and tottering suddenly on the very edge of the precipice. 
Miss Haldin pressed her hand to her breast. The dropped 
black veil lay on the floor between them. Her move- 
ment steadied him. He looked intently on that hand 
till it descended slowly, and then raised again his eyes to 
her face. But he did not give her time to speak. 

“ No ? You don’t understand ? Very well.” He had 
recovered his calm by a miracle of will. ” So you talked 
with Sophia Antonovna?” 

“Yes, Sophia Antonovna told me ...” Miss Haldin 
stopped, wonder growing in her wide eyes. 

“H’m. That’s the respectable enemy,” he muttered, 
as though he were alone. 

The tone of her references to you was extremely 
friendly,” remarked Miss Haldin, after waiting for a 
while. 

“Is that your impression? And she the most intel- 
ligent of the lot, too. Things then are going as well 
as possible. Everything conspires to . . . Ah! These 
conspirators!” he said, slowly, with an accent of scorn. 
“They would get hold of you in no time! You know, 
Natalia Viktorovna, I have the greatest difficulty in sav- 
ing myself from the superstition of an active Providence. 
It’s irresistible. . . . The alternative, of course, would 
be the personal devil of our simple ancestors. But if so, 
he has overdone it altogether — ^the old father of lies — 
our national patron — our domestic god whom we take 
with us when we go abroad. He has overdone it. It 
seems that I am not simple enough. . . . That’s it! I 
ought to have known. . . . And I did know it,” he 
added, in a tone of poignant distress which overcame 
my astonishment. 

“This man is deranged,” I said to myself, very much 
frightened. 

The next moment he gave me a very special impression 
beyond the range of commonplace definitions. It was as 
though he had stabbed himself outside and had come in 
346 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


there to show it — and more than that, as though he were 
turning the knife in the wound and watching the effect. 
That was the impression, rendered in physical terms. 
One could not defend oneself from a certain amount 
of pity. But it was for Miss Haldin, already so tried in 
her deepest affections, that I felt a serious concern. Her 
attitude, her face, expressed compassion struggling with 
doubt on the verge of terror. 

“What is it, Kirylo Sidorovitch ?” There was a hint 
of tenderness in that cry. He only stared at her in that 
complete surrender of all his faculties which in a happy 
lover would have had the name of ecstasy. 

“Why are you looking at me like this, Kirylo Sidoro- 
vitch ? I have approached you frankly. I need at this 
time to see clearly in myself. . . .” She ceased for a 
moment, as if to give him an opportunity to utter at last 
some word worthy of her exalted trust in her brother’s 
friend. His silence became impressive, like a sign of 
; some momentous resolution. 

In the end Miss Haldin went on, appealingly : 

“I have waited for you anxiously. But now that you 
have been moved to come to us in your kindness, you 
1 alarm me. You speak obscurely. It seems as if you 
! were keeping back something from me.” 

I “Tell me, Natalia Viktorovna,” he was heard at last in 
i a strange, unringing voice, “whom did you see in that 
i place?” 

She was startled — as if deceived in her expecta- 
tions. 

“Where? In Peter Ivanovitch’s rooms? There was 
Mr. Laspara and three other people.” 

“Ha! The vanguard — ^the forlorn hope of the great 
plot,” he commented to himself. “ Bearers of the spark 
j to start an explosion which is meant to change funda- 
mentally the lives of so many millions in order that 
Peter Ivanovitch should be the head of a State.” 

I “You are testing me,” she said. “Our dear one told 

347 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


me once to remember that men serve always something 
greater than themselves — ^the idea.’* 

“Our dear one,” he repeated, slowly. The effort he 
made to appear unmoved absorbed all the force of his 
soul. He stood before her like a being with hardly a 
breath of life. His eyes, even, as under great physical 
suffering, had lost all their fire. “ Ah ! your brother . . . 
but on your lips, in your voice it sounds . . . and, in- 
deed, in you everything is divine ... I wish I could know 
the innermost depths of your thoughts, of your feelings.” 

“ But why, Kirylo Sidorovitch?” she cried, alarmed by 
these words coming out of strangely lifeless lips. 

“Have no fear. It is not to betray you. So you went 
there. . . . And Sophia Antonovna, what did she tell 
you then? . . .” 

“She said very little, really. She knew that I should 
hear everything from you. She had no time for more 
than a few words.” Miss Hal din’s voice dropped, and 
she became silent for a moment. “The man, it appears, 
has taken his life,” she said, sadly. 

“Tell me, Natalia Viktorovna,” he asked, after a 
pause, “do you believe in remorse?” 

“What a question!” 

“What can you know of it?” he muttered, thickly. 
“It is not for such as you. . . . What I meant to ask 
was whether you believed in the efficacy of remorse.” i 

She hesitated, as though she had not understood, then ' 
her face lighted up. 

“ Yes,” she said, firmly. 

“So he is absolved. Moreover, that Ziemianitch was 
a brute — a drunken brute.” 

A shudder passed through Nathalie Haldin. 

“But a man of the people,” Razumov went on, “to ! 
whom they, the revolutionists, tell a tale of sublime 
hopes. Well, the people must be forgiven. . . . And 
you must not believe all you’ve heard from that source, 
either,” he added, with a sort of sinister reluctance. 

348 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 

“You are concealing something from me,” she ex- 
claimed. 

“Do you, Natalia Viktorovna, believe in the duty of 
revenge?” 

“Listen, Kirylo Sidorovitch, I believe that the future 
shall be merciful to us all. Revolutionist and reaction- 
ary, victim and executioner, betrayer and betrayed, they 
shall all be pitied together when the light breaks on our 
black sky at last. Pitied and forgotten; for without 
that there can be no union and love.” 

“I hear. No revenge for you, then? Never? Not 
the least bit ?” He smiled bitterly with his colorless lips. 
“You, yourself, are like the very spirit of that merciful 
future. Strange that it does not make it easier . . . 
No ! But suppose that the real betrayer of your brother 
— Ziemianitch — had a part in it, too, but insignificant and 
quite involuntary — suppose that he was a young man 
I — educated — an intellectual worker — ^thoughtful — a man 
'your brother might have trusted lightly, perhaps, but 
still — suppose . . . But there’s a whole story there.” 

“And you know the story! But why, then — ?” 

“ I have heard it. There is a staircase in it, and even 
phantoms — ^but that does not matter if a man always 
serves something greater than himself — ^the idea. I 
wonder who is the greatest victim in that tale.” 

“In that tale!” Miss Haldin repeated. She seemed 
turned into stone. 

“Do you know why I came to you? It is simply be- 
ca>use there is no one anywhere in the whole great world 
I could go to. Do you understand what I say ? No one 
to go to. Do you conceive the desolation of the thought : 
no one — to — go — to?” 

She was so utterly misled by her own enthusiastic in- 
terpretation of two lines in the letter of a visionary, so 
much already under the spell of her own dread of lonely 
days in their overshadowed world of angry strife, that 
she was a thousand miles from the glimpse of the truth 
349 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


struggling on his lips. What she was conscious of was 
the obscure form of his suffering. She was on the point 
of extending her hand to him impulsively when he spoke 
again. 

“ An hour after I saw you first I knew how it would be. 
The terrors of remorse, revenge, confession, anger, hate, , 
fear, are like nothing to the atrocious temptation which 
you put in my way the day you appeared before me with ^ 
your voice, with your face, in the garden of that ac- j 
cursed villa.” ^ 

She looked utterly bewildered for a moment, then, with 
a sort of swift despair, she went straight to the point. 

“The story, Kirylo Sidorovitch, the story!” 

“There is no more to tell!” He made a movement 
forward and she actually put her hand on his shoulder ^ 
to push him away, but her strength failed her and he 
kept his ground, though trembling in every limb. “It ^ 
ends here — on this very spot. The man stands before 
you.” He pressed a denunciatory finger to his breast 
with force, and became perfectly still. I ran forward, 
snatching up the chair, and was in time to catch hold 
of Miss Haldin and lower her down. As she sank into 
it she swung half round on my arm and remained averted ^ 
from us both, drooping over the back. He looked down 
at her with a horrible, expressionless tranquillity. In- , 
credulity, struggling with astonishment, anger, and dis- 
gust, deprived me for a time of the power of speech. 
Then I turned on him, speaking low from very rage. 

“This is monstrous. What are you staying for? j 
Don’t let her catch sight of you again. Go away. . . " 

He did not budge. “Don’t you understand that your 
presence is intolerable — even to me? You’ve behaved 
atrociously. If there’s any sense of shame in you, you 
will go at once.” 

Slowly his big head, his sullen eyes, moved in my j 
direction. “How did this old man come here?” he \ 
muttered, astounded. 


350 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


Suddenly Miss Haldin sprang up from the chair, with- 
out giving us a glance, made a few steps and tottered. 
Forgetting my indignation, and even the man himself, I 
hurried to her assistance. I took her by the arm, and 
she let me lead her into the drawing-room. Away from 
the lamp, in the deeper dusk of the distant end, the 
profile of Mrs. Haldin, her hands, her whole figure, had 
the stillness of a somber painting. Miss Haldin stopped, 
leaning on my arm, and without a word pointed mourn- 
fully at the tragic immobility of her mother, who seemed 
to watch a beloved head lying in her lap. 

That gesture had an unequaled force of expression 
so far-reaching in its human distress that one could 
not believe that it pointed out merely the ruthless 
working of political institutions. After assisting Miss 
Haldin to the sofa I turned round to go back and shut 
the door, but, framed in the opening, in the searching 
glare of the white anteroom, my eyes fell on Razumov, 
still there, standing before the empty chair, as if rooted 
forever to the spot of his atrocious confession. A wonder 
came over me that the mysterious force which had torn 
it out of him had failed to destroy his life, to shatter 
his body. It was there unscathed. I could see the 
broad line of his shoulders, his dark head, the amaz- 
ing immobility of his limbs! On the floor near his 
feet the veil dropped by Miss, Haldin looked intensely 
black in the white crudity of the light. He was gazing 
down at it spellbound. Next moment, stooping with an 
incredible, savage swiftness, he snatched it up and pressed 
it to his face with both hands. Something, extreme as- 
tonishment, perhaps, dimmed my eyes, so that he seemed 
to vanish before he moved. 

The slamming of the outer door restored my sight, and 
I went on contemplating the empty chair in the empty 
anteroom. The meaning of what I had seen reached my 
mind with a staggering shock. I seized Nathalie Haldin 
by the shoulder. 


351 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


“That miserable wretch has carried off your veil,” I 
cried, in the scared, deadened voice of an awful dis- 
covery. “He . . 

The rest remained unspoken. I stepped back and 
looked at her, in silent horror. Her hands were lying 
lifelessly, palms upward on her lap ; she raised her gray 
eyes slowly. Shadows seemed to come and go in them 
as if the steady flame of her soul had been made to 
vacillate at last in the cross-currents of poisoned air from 
the corrupted dark immensity claiming her for its own, 
where virtues themselves fester into crimes in the cyn- 
icism of oppression and revolt. 

“It is impossible to be more unhappy. ...” The 
languid whisper of her voice struck me with dismay. 
“I could almost wish myself dead. ... I feel my heart 
becoming like ice.” 


IV 


R AZUMOV walked straight home on the wet, glisten- 
ing pavement. A heavy shower passed over him; 
distant lightning played faintly against the fronts of 
the dumb house with the shuttered shops all along the 
Rue du Carouge; and now and then, after the faint 
flash, there was a faint, sleepy rumble; but the main 
forces of the thunder-storm remained massed down the 
Rhone Valley, as if loath to attack the respectable and 
passionless abode of democratic liberty, the serious- 
minded town of dreary hotels, tendering the same in- 
different, secretly scornful hospitality to tourists of all 
nations and to international conspirators of every shade. 

The owner of the shop was making ready to close when 
Razumov entered and without a word extended his 
hand for the key of his room. On reaching it for him 
from a shelf the man was about to pass a small joke 
as to taking the air in a thunder-storm, but, after look- 
ing at the face of his lodger, he only observed, just to 
say something : 

“You’ve got very wet.” 

“Yes, I am washed clean,” muttered Razumov, who 
was dripping from head to foot, and passed through the 
inner door toward the staircase leading to his room. 

He did not change his clothes, but, after lighting the 
candle, took off his watch and chain, laid them on the 
table, and sat down at once to write. The book of his 
compromising record was kept in a locked drawer, which 
he pulled out violently and did not even trouble to push 
back afterward. 


353 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


In this queer pedantism of a man who had read, 
thought, lived, pen in hand, there is the sincerity of the 
attempt to grapple by the same means with another 
profounder knowledge. After some passages which have 
been already made use of in the building up of this nar- 
rative, or add nothing new to the psychological side of 
this disclosure (there is even one more allusion to the 
silver medal in this last entry) , comes a page and a half 
of incoherent writing where his expression is baffled 
by the novelty and the mysteriousness of that side of 
our emotional life to which his solitary existence was 
a stranger. Then only he begins to address directly the 
reader he had in his mind, trying to express in broken 
sentences full of wonder and awe of the sovereign (he 
uses that very word) power of her person over his 
imagination, in which lay the dormant seed of her 
brother’s words. 

. . . The most trustful eyes in the world, he said of 
you when he was as well as a dead man already. And 
when you stood before me with your hand extended I 
remembered the very sound of his voice, and I looked 
into them — ^and that was enough. I knew that some- 
thing had happened, but I did not know then what. . . . 
But don’t be deceived, Natalia Viktorovna. I believed 
that I had in my breast nothing but an inexhaustible 
fund of anger and hate for you. I remembered that he 
had looked to you for the perpetuation of his visionary 
soul. He, this man who had robbed me of my hard- 
working, purposeful existence. I, too, had my guiding 
idea, and remember that among us it is more difficult 
to lead a life of toil and self-denial than to go out in the 
street and kill from conviction. But enough of that. 
Hate or no hate, I felt at once that, while shunning the 
sight of you, I could never succeed in driving away your 
image. I would say, addressing that dead man: “Is 
this the way you are going to haunt me?” It is only 
later on that I understood — only to-day, only a few 
354 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


hours ago. What could I have known of what was tear- 
ing me to pieces and dragging the secret forever to my 
lips ? You were appointed to undo the evil by making 
me betray myself back into truth and peace. You! 
And you have done it in the same way, too, in which 
he ruined me: by forcing upon me your confidence. 
Only what I detested him for in you ended by appear- 
ing noble and exalted. But, I repeat, be not deceived. 
I was given up to evil. I exalted in having induced 
that silly, innocent fool to steal his father’s money. He 
was a fool, but not a thief. I made him one. It was 
necessary. I had to confirm myself in my contempt 
and hate for what I betrayed. I have suffered from as 
many vipers in my heart as any social democrat of them 
all — vanity, ambitions, jealousies, shameful desires, evil 
passions of envy and revenge. I had my security stolen 
from me, years of good work, my best hopes. Listen — 
now comes the true confession. The other was nothing. 
To save me, your truthful eyes had to entice my 
thought to the very edge of the blackest treachery. I 
could see them constantly looking at me with the con- 
fidence of your pure heart, that had not been touched 
by evil things. Victor Haldin had stolen the truth of 
my life from me, who had nothing else in the world, and 
he boasted of living on through you on this earth where 
I had 1^0 place to lay my head on. She will marry some 
day, he had said — ^and your eyes were trustful. And 
do you know what I said to myself? I shall steal his 
sister’s soul from her. When we met that first morning 
in the gardens, and you spoke to me confidingly in the 
generosity of your spirit, I was thinking: “ Yes, he him- 
self by talking of her trustful eyes has delivered her 
into my hands!” If you could have looked then into 
my heart you would have cried out with terror and 
disgust. 

Perhaps no one will believe the baseness of such an 
intention to be possible. It’s certain that, when we 
355 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


parted that morning, I gloated over it. I brooded upon 
the best way. The old man you introduced me to in- 
sisted on walking with me. I don’t know who he is. 
He talked of you, of your lonely, helpless state, and 
every word of that friend of yours was egging me on 
to the unpardonable sin of stealing a soul. Could he 
have been the devil in the shape of an old Englishman ? 
Natalia Viktorovna, I was possessed! I returned to 
look at you every day, and drink in your presence the 
poison of my infamous purpose. But I foresaw diffi- 
culties. Then, Sophia Antonovna, of whom I was not 
thinking — I had forgotten her existence — ^appears sud- 
denly with that tale from St. Petersburg. ... The only 
thing needed to make me safe — a. trusted revolutionist 
forever. 

It was as if Ziemianitch had hanged himself to help 
me on to further crime. The strength of falsehood 
seemed irresistible. These people stood doomed by the 
folly and the illusion that was in them — they being 
themselves the slaves of lies. Natalia Viktorovna, I 
embraced the might of falsehood, I exulted in it — I 
gave myself up to it for a time. Who could have re- 
sisted! You yourself were the prize of it. I sat alone 
in my room planning a life the very thought of which 
makes me shudder now like a believer tempted to an 
atrocious sacrilege. But I brooded ardently over its 
images. The only thing was that there seemed to .be 
no air in it. And also I was afraid of your mother. I 
never knew mine. I’ve never known any kind of love. 
There is something in the mere word. ... Of you I was 
not afraid — forgive me for telling you this. No, not of 
you. You were truth itself. You could not suspect 
me. As to your mother, you yourself feared already 
that her mind had given way from grief. Who could 
believe anything against me? Had not Ziemianitch 
hanged himself from remorse? I said to myself, “Let’s 
put it to the test, and be done with it once for all.” 

356 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


I trembled when I went in; but your mother hardly 
listened to what I was saying to her, and in a little 
while seemed to have forgotten my very existence. I 
sat looking at her. There was no longer anything be- 
tween you and me. You were defenseless — ^and soon, 
very soon, you would be alone. ... I thought of you. 
Defenseless. For days you have talked with me — 
opening your heart. I remembered the shadow of your 
eyelashes over your gray, trustful eyes. And your pure 
forehead ! It is low, like the forehead of a statue — calm, 
unstained. It was as if your pure brow bore a light 
which fell on me, searched my heart and saved me from 
ignominy, from ultimate undoing. And it saved you 
too. Pardon my presumption. But there was that in 
your glances which seemed to tell me that you . . . Your 
light! Your truth! I felt that I must tell you that I 
had ended by loving you. And to tell you that I must 
first confess. Confess, go out — and perish. 

Suddenly you stood before me! You alone in all the 
world to whom I must confess. You fascinated me — ■ 
you have freed me from the blindness of anger and hate 
— the truth shining in you drew the truth out of me. 
Now I have done it; and as I write here I am in the 
depths of anguish, but there is air to breathe at last — 
air! And, by-the-bye, that old man sprang up from 
somewhere as I was speaking to you and raged at me 
like a disappointed devil. I suffer horribly, but I am 
not in despair. There is only one more thing to do for 
me. After that — if they let me — I shall go away and 
bury myself in obscure misery. In giving Victor Haldin 
up it was myself, after all, whom I have betrayed most 
basely. You must believe what I say now — ^you can’t 
refuse to believe this. Most basely. It is through you 
that I came to feel this so deeply. Therefore, it is they 
and not I who have the right on their side! — theirs is 
the strength of invisible powers. So be it. Only don’t 
be deceived, Natalia Vilrtorovna, I am not converted. 

357 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


Have I then the soul of a slave ? No ! I am independ- 
ent, and therefore perdition is my lot. 

On these words he stopped writing, shut the book, 
and wrapped it in the black veil he had carried off; 
he then ransacked the drawers for paper and string, 
made up a parcel, which he addressed to Miss Haldin, 
Boulevard des Philosophes, and then flung the pen 
away from him into a distant corner. 

This done, he sat down with the watch before him. 
He could have gone out at once, but the hour had not 
struck yet. The hour would be midnight. There was 
no reason for that choice except that the facts and the 
words of a certain evening in his past were timing his 
conduct in the present. The sudden power Nathalie 
Haldin had gained over him he ascribed to the same 
cause. “You don’t walk with impunity over a phan- 
tom’s breast,’’ he heard himself mutter. “Thus he 
saves me,’’ he thought, suddenly. “He himself the 
betrayed man.’’ The vivid image of Miss Haldin seemed 
to stand by him watching him relentlessly. She was 
not disturbing. He had done with life, and his thought 
even in her presence tried to take an impartial survey. 
Now his scorn extended to himself. “I had neither the 
simplicity nor the courage nor the self-possession to be 
a scoundrel — or an exceptionally able man. For who 
with us in Russia is to tell a scoundrel from an ex- 
ceptionally able man? ...” 

He was the puppet of his past, because at the very 
stroke of midnight he jumped up and ran swiftly down- 
stairs with no thought of his latch-key, as if confident 
that, by the power of destiny, the house door would fly 
open before the absolute necessity of his errand. And 
as a matter of fact, just as he got to the bottom of the 
stairs it was opened for him by some people of the 
house coming home late — two men and a woman. He 
slipped out through them into the street, swept then 
by a fitful gust of wind. They were, of course, very 

358 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


much startled. A flash of lightning enabled them to 
observe him walking away quickly. One of the men 
shouted, and was starting in pursuit, but the woman had 
recognized him. “It’s all right. It’s only that young 
Russian from the third floor.” The darkness returned 
with a single clap of thunder, like a gun fired for a 
warning of his escape from the prison of lies. 

He must have heard at some time or other, and now 
remembered unconsciously, that there was to be a 
gathering of revolutionists at the house of Julius Laspara 
that evening. At any rate, he made straight for the 
Laspara house, and found himself without surprise 
ringing at its street door, which, of course, was closed. 
By that time the thunder-storm had attacked in earnest. 
The steep incline of the street ran with water, the thick 
fall of rain enveloped him like a luminous veil in the 
play of lightning. He was perfectly calm, and, between 
the crashes, listened attentively to the delicate tinkling 
of the door-bell somewhere within the house. 

There was some difficulty before he was admitted. 
His person was not known to that one of the guests who 
had volunteered to go down-stairs and see what was the 
matter. Razumov argued with him patiently. There 
could be no harm in admitting a caller. He had some- 
thing to communicate to the company up-stairs. 

“Something of importance?” 

“That’ll be for the hearers to judge.” 

“Urgent?” 

“Without a moment’s delay.” 

Meantime one of the Laspara daughters descended 
the stairs, small lamp in hand, in a light but grimy and 
crumpled gown, which seemed to hang on her by a 
miracle, and looking more than ever like an old doll 
with a dusty brown wig dragged from under a sofa. 
She recognized Razumov at once. 

“How do you do? Of course you may come in.” 

Following her light, Razumov climbed two flights of 
24 359 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


stairs from the lower darkness. Leaving the lamp on 
a bracket on the landing, she opened a door and went in, 
accompanied by the skeptical guest. Razumov entered 
last. He closed the door behind him, and, stepping to 
one side, put his back against the wall. 

The three little rooms en suite with low, smoky 
ceilings and lit by paraffin lamps, were crammed with 
people. Loud talking was going on in all three, and 
tea-glasses, full, half-full, and empty, stood everywhere, 
even on the floor. The other Laspara girl sat dishev- 
eled and languid behind an enormous samovar. In 
the inner doorway Razumov had a glimpse of the pro- 
tuberance of a large stomach which he recognized. Only 
a few feet from him Julius Laspara was getting down 
hurriedly from his high stool. 

The appearance of the midnight visitor caused no 
small sensation. Laspara is very summary In his version 
of that night’s happenings. After some words of greet- 
ing, disregarded by Razumov, Laspara (ignoring pur- 
posely his guest’s soaked condition and his extraordinary 
manner of presenting himself) mentioned something 
about writing an article. He was growing uneasy, and 
Razumov appeared absent-minded. “I have written 
already all I shall ever write,” he said at last, with a 
little laugh. 

The whole company’s attention was riveted on the 
new-comer, dripping with water, deadly pale, and keep- 
ing his position against the wall. Razumov put Las- 
para gently aside, as though he wished to be seen from 
head to foot by everybody. By then the buzz of con- 
versation had died down completely, even in the most 
distant of the three rooms. The doorway facing 
Razumov became blocked by men and women, who 
craned their necks and certainly seemed to expect some- 
thing startling to happen. 

A squeaky, insolent declaration was heard from that 
group. 

360 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


“ I know this ridiculously conceited individual.” 

“What individual?” asked Razumov, raising his 
bowed head, and searching with his eyes all the eyes 
fixed upon him. An intense, surprised silence lasted 
for a time. “If it’s me . . .” 

He stopped, thinking over the form of his confession, 
and found it suddenly, unavoidably suggested by the 
fateful evening of his life. 

“I am come here,” he began, in a clear voice, “to talk 
of an individual called Ziemianitch. Sophia Antonovna 
has informed me that she would make public a certain 
letter from Petersburg. ...” 

“Sophia Antonovna left us early in the evening,” 
said Laspara. “ It’s quite correct. Everybody here . . .” 

“Very well,” Razumov interrupted, with a shade of 
impatience, for his heart was beating strongly. Then, 
mastering his voice so far that there was even a taint 
of irony in his clear, forcible enunciation: “In justice 
to that individual, the much ill-used peasant Ziemian- 
itch, I now declare solemnly that the conclusions of 
that letter calumniate a man of the people — a bright 
Russian soul. Ziemianitch had nothing to do with the 
actual arrest of Victor Haldin.” 

Razumov dwelt on the name heavily, and then waited 
till the faint, mournful murmur which greeted it died 
out. 

“Victor Victorovitch Haldin,” he began again, “act- 
ing with, no doubt, noble-minded imprudence, sought 
refuge with a certain student of whose opinions he knew 
nothing but what his own illusions suggested to his 
generous heart. It was an unwise display of confidence. 
But I am not here to appreciate the actions of Victor 
Haldin. Am I to tell you of the feelings of that student, 
sought out in his obscure solitude, and menaqed by the 
complicity forced upon him ? Am I to tell you what he 
did? It’s a rather complicated story. In the end he 

went to General T himself, and said : ‘ I have the 

361 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


man who killed P locked up in my room, Victor 

Haldin, a student.’” 

A great buzz arose, in which Razumov raised his 
voice. 

“Observe — that man had certain honest ideals in 
view. But I didn’t come here to explain him.” 

, “No. But you must explain how you know all this,” 
came in graver tones from somebody. 

“A vile coward!” This simple cry vibrated with in- 
dignation. “Name him!” shouted other voices. 

“What are you clamoring for?” said Razumov, dis- 
dainfully, in the profound silence which fell on the rais- 
ing of his hand. “Haven’t you all understood that I 
am that man?” 

Laspara went away brusquely from his side, and 
climbed upon his stool. In the first forward surge of 
people toward him Razumov expected to be torn to 
pieces, but they fell back without touching him, and 
nothing came of it but noise. It was bewildering. His 
head ached terribly. In the uproarious confusion of 
voices he made out several times the name of Peter 
Ivanovitch, the word, “Judgment,” and the phrase, 
“But this is a confession,” uttered by somebody in a 
desperate shriek. In the midst of the tumult a young 
man, younger than himself, approached him with blaz- 
ing eyes. 

“I must beg you,” he said, with venomous politeness, 
“to be good enough not to move from this spot till you 
are told what you are to do.” 

Razumov shrugged his shoulders. 

“I came voluntarily.” 

“Maybe. But you won’t go out till you are per- 
mitted,” retorted the other. 

He beckoned with his head, calling out: “Louisa! 
Come, Louisa ! Here, please.” And presently one of the 
Laspara girls (they had been staring at Razumov from 
behind the samovar) came along, trailing a bedraggled 
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UNDER WESTERN EYES 


tail of dirty flounces and dragging with her a chair, 
which she set against the door, and, sitting down on it, 
crossed her legs. The young man thanked her effusively 
and rejoined the others carrying on an animated discus- 
sion in low tones. Razumov lost himself for a moment. 

A shrill voice screamed, “ Confession or no confession, 
he’s a police spy!” 

The revolutionist Nikita had pushed his way in front 
of Razumov, and faced him with his big, livid cheeks, 
his heavy paunch, bull neck, and enormous hands. 
Razumov looked at the famous slayer of gendarmes in 
silent disgust. 

“And what are you?” he said, very low, then shut his 
eyes and rested the back of his head against the wall. 

“ It would be better for you to depart now,” Razumov 
heard a mild, sad voice, and opened his eyes. The 
gentle speaker was an elderly man with a great brush of 
fine hair making a silvery halo all round his keen, in- 
telligent face. “Peter Ivanovitch shall be informed 
of your confession — ^and you shall be directed.” 

Then, turning to Nikita, nicknamed Mecator, stand- 
ing by, he appealed to him in a murmur. 

“What else can we do? His sincerity apart, he can- 
not be dangerous any longer.” 

The other muttered: “Better make sure of that be- 
fore we let him go. Leave that to me. I know how 
to deal with such gentlemen.” 

He exchanged meaning glances with two or three 
men who nodded slightly, then turning roughly to 
Razumov: “You heard? You are not wanted here. 
Why don’t you get out?” 

The Laspara girl on guard rose and pulled the chair 
out of the way unemotionally. She gave a sleepy stare 
to Razumov, who started round the room and passed 
slowly by her, as if struck by some sudden thought. 

“I beg you to observe,” he said, turning in the door- 
way, “that I had only to hold my tongue. To-day, of 

363 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


all days since I came among you, I was made safe — 
and to-day I have made myself free from falsehood, from 
remorse — ^independent of every single human being on 
this earth.” 

He turned his back on the room and walked toward 
the stairs, but at the violent crash of the door behind 
him he looked over his shoulder and saw that Nikita, 
with three others, had followed him on the landing. 
“They are going to kill me, after all,” he thought. 

Before he had time to turn and confront them fairly 
they had set on him with a rush. He was driven vio- 
lently against the wall. “I wonder how,” he com- 
pleted his thought. 

Nikita said, with a shrill laugh, right in his face: 
“We shall make you harmless. You wait a bit.” 

Razumov did not struggle. The three men held him 
pinned against the wall, while Nikita, taking up a 
position a little on one side, deliberately swung off 
widely his enormous arm. Razumov, looking for a 
knife in his hand, saw it come at him open, unarmed, 
and received a tremendous blow on the side of his head 
over his ear. At the same time he heard a faint, dull, 
detonating sound, as if some one had fired a pistol on 
the other side of the wall. A raging fury awoke in him 
at this outrage. The people in Laspara’s rooms, hold- 
ing their breath, listened to the desperate scuffling of 
four men all over the landing, thuds against the walls, 
a terrible crash against the very door, then a fall, as if 
they had all gone down together with a violence which 
seemed to shake the whole house. Razumov, over- 
powered, breathless, crushed under the weight of his 
assailants, saw the monstrous Nikita squatting on his 
heels near his head, while the others held him down, 
kneeling on his chest, gripping his throat, lying across 
his legs. 

“Turn his face the other way,” the paunchy terrorist 
directed in an excited, gleeful squeak. 

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UNDER WESTERN EYES 


Razumov could struggle no longer. He was ex- 
hausted; and, passive, he had to watch passively the 
heavy, open hand of the brute swing off and descend 
again in a degrading blow over his eyes. It seemed to 
split his head in two — and all at once the men holding 
him became perfectly silent — soundless as shadows. 
In silence they pulled him brutally to his feet, rushed 
with him noiselessly down the staircase, and, opening 
the door, flung him out headlong into the street. 

He fell on his face, and at once rolled over and over, 
helplessly going down the short slope together with the 
rush of running rain-water. He came to a rest in the 
roadway of the street at the bottom lying on his back, 
with a great flash of lightning in his eyes, a vivid, silent 
flash of lightning which blinded him utterly. He picked 
himself up and put his arm over his eyes to recover his 
sight. Not a sound reached him from anywhere, and 
he began to walk staggeringly down a long, empty street. 
The lightning waved and darted round him its silent 
flames, the water of the deluge fell, ran, leaped, drove, 
noiseless like the drift of mist. In this unearthly still- 
ness his footsteps fell silent on the pavement, while a 
dumb wind drove him on and on, like a lost mortal 
in a phantom world ravaged by a soundless thunder- 
storm. God only knows where his noiseless feet took 
him to that night, here and there, and back again with- 
out pause or rest. Of one place at least where they 
did lead him we heard afterward; and in the morning 
the driver of the first south-shore tram-car, clanging 
his bell desperately, saw a bedraggled, soaked man with- 
out a hat walking in the roadway unsteadily with his 
head down step right in front of his car and go under. 

When they picked him up, with two broken limbs 
and a crushed side, he had not lost consciousness. It 
was as though he had tumbled smashing himself into 
a world of mutes. Silent men, moving unheard, lifted 
him up, laid him on the sidewalk, gesticulating and 

36s 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 

grimacing round him their alarm, horror, and com- 
passion. A red face with mustaches stooped close 
over him, lips moving, eyes rolling. Razumov tried 
hard to understand the reason of this dumb show. To 
those who stood around him the features of that stranger 
so grievously hurt seemed composed in meditation. 

Afterward his eyes sent out at them a look of fear and 
closed slowly. They stared. Razumov made an effort 
to remember some French words. 

“Je suis devenu sourd,” he had time to utter feebly 
before he lost consciousness. 

“Deaf,” they said to one another; “that’s why he 
did not hear the car.” 

They carried him off in that same car. Before it 
started on its journey a woman in a shabby black dress, 
who had run out of the iron gate of some private grounds 
up the road, clambered on to the rear platform, and 
would not be put off. 

“I am a relation,” she protested, in bad French. 
“This young man is a Russian, and I am his relation.” 

On this ground they let her have her way. She sat 
down calmly and took his head on her lap. Her scared, 
faded eyes avoided looking at his death -like face. At 
the comer of a street, on the other side of the town, a 
stretcher met the car. She followed it to the door of 
the hospital, where they let her come in and see him 
laid on a bed. Razumov’s new-found relation never 
shed a tear, but the officials had some difficulty in induc- 
ing her to go away. The porter observed her lingering on 
the opposite pavement for a long time. Suddenly, as 
though she had remembered something, she ran off. 

The ardent hater of all finance ministers, the slave 

of Mme. de S , had made up her mind to offer her 

resignation as lady companion to the Egeria of Peter 
Ivanovitch. She had found work to do after her heart. 

But hours before, while the thunder-storm still raged, 
there had been in the rpoms of Julius Laspara a great 
366 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


sensation. The terrible Nikita, coming from the land- 
ing, uplifted his squeaky voice in horrible glee before all 
the company. 

“Razumov! Mr. Razumov! The wonderful man! 
He shall never be any use for a spy to any one. He 
won’t talk because he will never hear anything in his 
life. Not a thing! I have burst the drums of his ears. 
Oh, you may trust me. I know the trick. He! he! 
he! I know the trick.’* 


V 


I T was nearly a week after her mother’s funeral that 
I saw Nathalie Haldin for the last time. 

In those silent, somber days the doors of the apart- 
ment on the Boulevard des Philosophes were closed to 
every one but myself. I trust I was of some use, if 
only in this, that I alone was aware of the incredible 
part of the situation. Miss Haldin nursed her mother 
alone to the last moment. If Razumov’s visit had any- 
thing to do with Mrs. Haldin ’s end (and I cannot help 
thinking that it hastened it considerably), it is because 
the man trusted impulsively by the ill-fated Victor 
Haldin had failed to gain the confidence of Victor 
Haldin’s mother. What tale precisely he told her 
cannot be known — at any rate, I do not know it — ^but 
to me she seemed to die from the shock of an ultimate 
disappointment borne in silence. She had not believed 
him. Perhaps she could not longer believe any one, 
and consequently had nothing to say to any one — not 
even to her daughter. I suspect that Miss Haldin lived 
the heaviest hours of her life by that silent death-bed. I 
confess I was angry with the broken-hearted old woman 
passing away in the obstinacy of her mute distrust of 
her daughter. 

When it was all over I stood aside. Miss Haldin had 
her compatriots round her then. A great number of 
them attended the funeral. I was there, too, but after- 
ward managed to keep away from Miss Haldin, till I 
received a short note rewarding my self-sacrifice: “It 
is as you would have it. I am going back to Russia at 
once. My mind is made up. Come and see me.” 

368 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


Verily, it was a reward of discretion. I went without 
delay to receive it. The apartment on the Boulevard 
des Philosophes presented the dreary signs of impend- 
ing abandonment. It looked desolate and as if already 
empty to my eyes. 

Standing, we exchanged a few words about her 
health, mine, remarks as to some people of the Russian 
colony; and then Nathalie Haldin, establishing me on 
the sofa, began to talk openly of her future work, of 
her plans. It was all to be as I had wished it. And 
it was to be for life. We should never see each other 
again. Never! 

I gathered this reward to my breast. Nathalie Haldin 
looked matured by her open and secret experiences. 
With her arms folded she walked up and down the 
whole length of the room, talking slowly, smooth- 
browed, with a resolute profile. She gave me a new 
view of herself, and I marveled at that something grave 
and measured in her voice, in her movements, in her 
manner. It was the perfection of collected independence. 
The strength of her nature had come to the surface be- 
cause the obscure depths had been stirred. 

“We can talk of it now,” she observed, after a silence 
and stopping short before me. “Have you been to in- 
quire at the hospital lately?” 

“Yes, I have.” And as she looked at me fixedly: 
“He will live, the doctors say. But I thought that 
Tekla . . .” 

“Tekla has not been near me for several days,” ex- 
plained Miss Haldin, quickly. “As I never offered to 
go to the hospital with her, she thinks that I have no 
heart. She is disillusioned about me.” 

And Miss Haldin smiled faintly. 

“Yes. She sits with him as long and as often as they 
will let her,” I said. “She says she must never abandon 
him, never as long as she lives. He’ll need somebody 
— a hopeless cripple, and stone-deaf with that.” 

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UNDER WESTERN EYES 


“Stone-deaf? I didn’t know,’’ murmured Nathalie 
Haldin. 

“He is — it seems strange. I am told there were no 
apparent injuries to the head. They say, too, that it 
is not very likely that he will live so very long for Tekla 
to take care of him.’’ 

Miss Haldin shook her head. 

“While there are travelers ready to fall by the way 
our Tekla shall never be idle. She is a good Samaritan 
by an irresistible vocation. The revolutionists didn’t 
understand her. Fancy a devoted creature like that 
being employed to carry about documents sewn in her 
dress or made to write from dictation!’’ 

“There is not much perspicacity in the world.” 

No sooner uttered I regretted that observation. 
Nathalie Haldin, looking me straight in the face, as- 
sented by a slight movement of her head. She was not 
offended, but, turning away, began to pace the room 
again. To my Western eyes she seemed to be getting 
farther and farther from me, quite beyond my reach 
now, but undiminished in the increasing distance. I 
remained silent, as though it were hopeless to raise my 
voice. The sound of hers so close to me made me start 
a little. 

“Tekla saw him picked up after the accident? The 
good soul never explained to me really how it came 
about. She affirms that there was some understanding 
between them, some sort of compact, that in any sore 
need, in misfortune, or difficulty, or pain, he was to 
come to her.” 

“Was there?” I said. “It is lucky for him that there 
was then. He’ll need all the devotion of the good 
Samaritan.” 

It was a fact that Tekla, looking out of her window at 
five in the morning, for some reason or other, had beheld 
Razumov in the grounds of the Chateau Borel, stand- 
ing stock-still, bareheaded in the rain, at the foot of 

370 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


the terrace. She had screamed out to him by name 
to know what was the matter. He never even raised 
his head. By the time she had dressed herself suffi- 
ciently to run down-stairs he was gone. She started 
in pursuit, and, rushing out into the road, came almost 
directly upon the arrested tram-car and the small knot 
of people picking up Razumov. That much Tekla had 
told me herself one afternoon we happened to meet at 
the door of the hospital, and without any kind of com- 
ment. But I did not want to meditate very long on 
the inwardness of this strange episode. 

“Yes, Natalia Viktorovna, he shall need somebody 
when they dismiss him on crutches and stone-deaf from 
the hospital. But I do not think that when he rushed 
like an escaped madman into the grounds of the Chateau 
Borel it was to seek the help of that good Tekla.” 

“ No !” said Nathalie, stopping short before me. “ Per- 
haps not.” She sat down and leaned her head on her 
hand thoughtfully. 

The silence lasted for several minutes. During that 
time I remembered the evening of his atrocious con- 
fession — ^the plaint she seemed to have hardly enough 
life left in her to utter: “It is impossible to be more 
unhappy.” . . . The recollection would have given me 
a shudder if I had not been lost in wonder at her force 
and her tranquillity. There was no longer any Nathalie 
Haldin, because she had completely ceased to think of 
herself. It was a great victory, a characteristically 
Russian exploit in self-suppression. 

She recalled me to myself by getting up suddenly like 
a person who has come to a decision. She walked to 
the writing-table, now stripped of all the small objects 
associated with her by daily use — a mere piece of dead 
furniture; but it contained something living still, since 
she took from a recess a flat parcel, which she brought 
to me. 

“It’s a book,” she said, rather abruptly. “It was 

2>n 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


sent to me. I told you nothing at the time, but now 
I’ve decided to leave it with you. I have the right to 
do that. It was sent to me. It is mine. You may 
preserve it or destroy it after you have read it. And 
while you read it please remember that I was defense- 
less. And that he . . .” 

“Defenseless!” I repeated, surprised, looking hard at 
her. 

“You’ll find the very word written there,” she whis- 
pered. “Well, it’s true! I was defenseless. But 
perhaps you were able to see that for yourself.” 

Her face colored, then went deadly pale. 

“In justice to the man, I want you to remember that 
I was. Oh! I was, I was!” 

I rose, a little shaky. 

“I am not likely to forget anything you say at this 
original parting.” 

Her hand fell into mine. 

“It’s difficult to believe that it must be good-by with 
us.” 

She returned my pressure, and our hands separated. 

“Yes. I am leaving here to-morrow. My eyes are 
open at last and my hands are free now. As for the rest, 
which of us can fail to hear the stifled cry of our great 
distress. It may be nothing to the world — ” 

“The world is more conscious of your discordant 
voices,” I said. “It is the way of the world.” 

“Yes” — she bowed her head in assent, and hesitated 
for a moment — “I must own to you that I have been 
thinking of the time when all discord shall be silenced. 
Just imagine ! The tempest of blows and of execrations 
is over. All is still ; the new sun is rising, and the weary 
men, united at last, taking count in their conscience of 
the ended contest, feel saddened by their victory, be- 
cause so many ideas have perished for the triumph of 
one, so many beliefs have abandoned them without sup- 
port. They feel alone on the earth and gather close 

372 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


together. Yes, there must be many bitter hours! But 
at last the anguish of hearts shall be extinguished in 
love.” 

And on this last word of her wisdom, a word so sweet, 
so bitter, so cruel sometimes, I said good-by to Nathalie 
Haldin. It is hard to think I shall never look any more 
into the trustful eyes of that girl — wedded to an in- 
vincible belief in the advent of loving accord springing 
like a heavenly flower from the soil of men’s earth, 
soaked in blood, torn by struggles, watered with tears. 

It must be understood that at that time I didn’t 
know anything of Mr. Razumov’s confession to the 
assembled revolutionists. Nathalie Haldin might have 
guessed what was the “one thing more” which remained 
for him to do; but this my Western eyes had failed to 
see. 

Tekla, the ex-lady companion of Mme. de S 

haunted his bedside at the hospital. We met once or 
twice at the door of that establishment, but on these 
occasions she was not communicative. She gave me 
news of Mr. Razumov as concisely as possible. He was 
making a slow recovery, but would remain a hopeless 
cripple all his life. Personally, I never went near him; 
I never saw him again after the awful evening when I 
stood by, a watchful but ignored spectator of his scene 
with Miss Haldin. He was in due course discharged 
from the hospital, and his “relative” — so I was told — 
had carried him off somewhere. 

My information was completed nearly two years later. 
The opportunity certainly was not ot my seeking; it 
was quite accidentally that I met a much trusted woman 
revolutionist at the house of a distinguished Russian 
gentleman of liberal convictions, who came to live in 
Geneva for a time. 

He was a quite different sort of celebrity from Peter 
Ivanovitch — a dark-haired man with kind eyes, high- 
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UNDER WESTERN EYES 


shouldered, courteous, and with something hushed and 
circumspect in his manner. He approached me, choos- 
ing the moment when there was no one near, followed 
by a gray-haired, alert lady in a crimson blouse. 

“Our Sophia Antonovna wishes to be made known 
to you,” he addressed me, in his cautious voice. “And 
so I leave you two to have a talk together.” 

“I would never have intruded myself upon your 
notice,” the gray-haired lady began at once, “if I had 
not been charged with a message for you.” 

It was a message of a few friendly words from Nathalie 
Haldin. Sophia Antonovna had just returned from a 
secret excursion into Russia, and had seen Miss Haldin. 
She lived in a town “in the center” sharing her com- 
passionate labors between the horrors of overcrowded 
jails and the heartrending misery of bereaved homes. 
She did not spare herself in good service, Sophia An- 
tonovna assured me. 

“She has a faithful soul, an undaunted spirit, and an 
indefatigable body,” the woman revolutionist summed 
it all up with a touch of enthusiasm. 

A conversation thus engaged was not likely to drop 
from want of interest on my part. We went to sit 
apart in a corner, where no one interrupted us. In the 
course of our talk about Miss Haldin Sophia An- 
tonovna remarked, suddenly: 

“I suppose you remember seeing me before? That 
evening when Natalia came to ask Peter Ivanovitch for 
the address of a certain Razumov, that young man 
who . . .” 

“I remember perfectly,” I said. And when Sophia 
Antonovna learned that I had in my possession that 
young man’s journal, given me by Miss Haldin, she be- 
came intensely interested, and did not conceal her 
curiosity to see the document. 

I offered to show it to her, and she at once offered to 
call on me next day for that purpose. 

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UNDER WESTERN EYES 


She turned the pages avidly for an hour or more, and 
then returned me the book with a faint sigh. While 
moving about Russia she had seen Razumov too. He 
lived not “in the center,” but “in the south.” She 
described to me a little two-roomed house in the suburb 
of some very small town, hiding within the high plank 
fence of a yard overgrown with thistles . He was crippled, 
ill, getting weaker every day, and Tekla, the Samaritan, 
tended him unweariedly with all the joy of natural de- 
votion. There was nothing in that task to become 
disillusioned about. 

I did not hide from Sophia Antonovna my surprise 
that she should have visited Mr. Razumov. I did not 
even understand the motive. But she informed me 
that she was not the only one. * 

“Some of us always go to see him when passing 
through. He is intelligent. He has ideas. . . . He talks 
well too.” 

Presently I heard, for the first time, of Razumov’s 
public confession in Laspara's house. Sophia Anton- 
ovna gave me a detailed relation of what had occurred 
there. Razumov himself had told her all about it, 
most minutely. 

Then looking hard at me with her brilliant black eyes : 

“There are moments of evil in every life. A false 
suggestion enters one’s brain, and then fear is born — 
fear of oneself, fear for oneself. Or else a false courage 
— who knows? Well, call it what you like; but tell me, 
how many of us would deliver themselves up deliberate- 
ly to perdition (as he himself says in that book) rather 
than go on living secretly debased in their own eyes? 
How many? . . . And please mark this — he was safe 
when he did it. It was just when he believed himself 
safe and more — infinitely more — when the possibility 
of being loved by that admirable girl first dawned upon 
him, that he discovered that his bitterest railings, the 
worst wickedness, the devil work of his hate and pride, 
25 375 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


could never cover up the ignominy of the exist- 
ence before him. There’s character in such a discov- 
ery.” 

I accepted her conclusion in silence. Who would care 
to question the grounds of forgiveness or compassion? 
However, it appeared later on that there was some 
compunction too in the charity extended by the revo- 
lutionary world to Razumov, the betrayer. Sophia 
Antonovna continued, uneasily: 

“And then, you know, he was the victim of an out- 
rage. It was not authorized. Nothing was decided 
as to what was to be done to him. He had confessed 
voluntarily. And that Nikita, who burst the drums 
of his ears purposely, out on the landing, you know, as 
if carried away by indignation — well, he has turned out 
to be a scoundrel of the worst kind — a traitor himself, 
a betrayer — a spy! Razumov told me he had charged 
him with it by a sort of inspiration. ...” 

“I had a glimpse of that brute,” I said. “How many 
of you could have been deceived for half a day passes 
my comprehension!” 

She interrupted me. 

“There! There! Don’t talk of it. The first time 
I saw him I too was appalled. They cried me down. 
We were always telling one another, ‘ Oh ! You mustn’t 
mind his appearance.’ And then he was always ready 
to kill. There was no doubt of it. He killed — yes! in 
both camps. The fiend! ...” 

And Sophia Antonovna, after mastering the angry 
trembling of her lips, told me a very queer tale. It went 
that Councilor Mikulin, traveling in Germany (shortly 
after Razumov’s disappearance from Geneva), happened 
to meet Peter Ivanovitch in a railway carriage. Being 
alone in the compartment, these two talked together 
half the night, and it was then that Mikulin, the police 
chief, gave a hint to the arch-revolutionist as to the 
true character of the arch-slayer of gendarmes. It looks 
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UNDER WESTERN EYES 


as though Mikulin had wanted to get rid of that partic- 
ular agent of his own. He might have grown tired of 
him, or frightened of him. It must also be said that 
Mikulin had inherited the sinister Nikita from his 
predecessor in office. 

And this story too I received without comment in 
my character of a mute witness of things Russian, un- 
rolling their Eastern logic before my Western eyes. But 
I permitted myself a question: 

“ Tell me, please, Sophia Antonovna, did Mme. 

de S leave all her fortune to Peter Ivano- 

vitch?” 

“ Not a bit of it.” The woman revolutionist shrugged 
her shoulders in disgust. “She died without making 
a will. A lot of nephews and nieces came down from 
Petersburg like a flock of vultures and fought for her 
money among themselves. All beastly Kammerherrs 
and maids of honor — abominable court flunkeys. 
Tfui!” 

“One does not hear much of Peter Ivanovitch now,” 
I remarked, after a pause. 

“Peter Ivanovitch,” said Sophia Antonovna, gravely, 
“has united himself to a peasant girl.” 

I was truly astonished. 

“What! On the Riviera?” 

“What nonsense! Of course not.” 

Sophia Antonovna’s tone was slightly tart. 

“Is he, then, living actually in Russia? It’s a 
tremendous risk — isn’t it?” I cried. “And all for the 
sake of a peasant girl. Don’t you think it’s very wrong 
of him?” 

Sophia Antonovna preserved a mysterious silence for 
a while, then made a statement. 

“He just simply adores her.” 

“ Does he ? Well, then, I hope that she won’t hesitate 
to beat him.” 

Sophia Antonovna got up and wished me good-bye, 
377 


UNDER WESTERN EYES 


as though she had not heard a word of my impious hope , 
but, in the very doorway, where I attended her, she 
turned round for an instant, and declared in a firm 
voice : 

“Peter Ivanovitch is a wonderful man!” 


THE END 























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